Sponsored Post It's HOT - Keep your birds feeling their best!

[Erin~TheChickenLover]

We run our hose water in their pen a couple of times a day. Our New Hampshire Reds love drinking the cool water and walking in it. I was thinking about putting a small pool in their yard with a couple of inches of water. They are already a year old, do you think they will use it?

I give my chickens a water pan that they can stand in and it works great. My easter egger, May, especially likes it. They even like to get in it when it's not that hot.

 

[krobin04]

Fans anyone? I thought about putting fans out side one end of the pens and letting it blow through for circulation, and also to try to keep flies moving. Seems they are extra lively this yr. I love the ice idea.
Thanks for all the tidbits of info.

 

[Betsy57]

I spray foam insulated my new addition to my coop (metal roof) and boy has that made a difference with the temperature in the coop! Plus my other garden shed coop has a shade tarp that I put up in the summer that really helps. But it is still hot in these coops and everywhere. Supposed to be 104 today. They have shade under their coops and bushes they spend most of their days and then are active in the early morning and evenings. I spray the dirt under the coops and they love to cool down on that. I give them ice water too plus cool watermelon, melon, blueberries. Poor animals. Nothing to do but keep praying the Lord will send rain and relief from the temperatures. Worst heat and drought we've had since the 1930's (from what the news is saying, I wasn't around then!)

 

[flewdacoop]

it has been in the hundreds here too all week and i work from 5am to 5pm so when i get home i water the bottom of the chicken run and they seem to like that and put out cold fresh water and feed because where i keep the feed and water is in the coop and it gets pretty warm in there i like the frosen bottle thing just have to get a bigger water jug.. thanks

 

[Chicks Galore3]

I don't have burlap bags for the swamp cooler, but is there any other things i could use?
I really don't want to lose any!!!!! I've had them for three months, and i love them tp peices!

 

[Fruittreehill]

I am soooo thankful for this thread! I came on here just knowing my good friends would have ideas! This is our first year as "chicken farmers" lol, so this heat is scary! It's going to be 106 here today in missouri.... the chickens are int he shade of our fruit trees, and they have 3 waterers that are constantly full.... i like the frozen fruit and veggies ideas.... im going to be heading out there again early afternoon to give them there frozen fruit and veggies. Im also going to give it to my bunnies lol. They are ultra hot too scary stuff! Thanks for the ideas!!
JL~
www.fruittreehillhannibal.blogspot.com

 

[emach0301]

How can I get my chickens willingly get into their water pan? They all look at it like its scary! I have it about an inch deep with water?

 

[gram of five]

My girls won't go in the water pan we put out either. We even put in some frozen berries hoping they would cool down when they went after them, no way. I go home on my lunch hour and give them fresh clean cold water and frozen watermelon and frozen berries. I didn't worry about them as much this past winter when the temps were below zero, they were fine. But now they can't get shelter from the heat. Their run is in the shade and we have shade cloth over the coop, it's still over 100 degrees in the coop. Hope the girls take care of business and get out into the run where it is a bit cooler. Not nearly as bad temps as some, but still shocking for the girls. I am going to try to get fans in their over the weekend so that might help too. Thanks for all the good tips on this thread!

 

[flewdacoop]

im going to get a mistter tommorrow

 

[MrsMoonCat]

For those of you who live where it gets in the 90s and up, you can create a simple 'swamp cooler' for your girls with burlap sacks and a drip hose. 

Take burlap sacks and cut them open, stitch them together to form a tarp big enough to cover the cages. Run a drip hose over the top and right along the edge so the water will drip down and saturate the  burlap. Shade cloth won't work because it doesn't get 'wet', the water just runs off.

The weave of burlap is open enough to allow some air circulation without stifling them inside, and adds shade too. When the warm air hits the wet burlap it will cool by almost 15 degrees on even the hottest of days.

This is how my neighbor kept her Angora rabbits cool when the temps hit the triple digits.

This is a fantastic tip. I only wish our feed still came in burlap I will go to the fabric store and get some though. Thanks for posting this.