My chickens are HOT! Help!

[mizz9]

I am new to chickens so of course worry about everything BYC is always helpful!!!

Just wondering at what point should you start worrying? They are panting and wings out on and off right now. But they are alert and still walking around pecking at stuff and eating etc. So I assume that means they are OK for now.

 

[Mrs. K]

An alert active bird is in no danger of dying. You are right, that is a good sign.

I don't suppose that there is a lot of corn in the frozen cups, but corn is a "hot" feed.

Lots of fresh water, lots of shade, wet the ground. Also check the set up at different times of the day, my own set up, morning is quite shady, but late afternoon, the shade was greatly reduced, I put a piece of cardboard on the west side, about a foot off the bottom of the fence, this allows air flow, but also increased the shaded area.

For places with huge humidity - fans help

Good luck

Mrs K

 

[BruceAZ]

I am having the same problem today. It is 99 out. They are fully in the shade. My chicks are 10 weeks old and the poor girls are panting a lot. They have a nipple drinker set up which works just fine, but since it is so hot I am wondering if it is too much work for the amount of water they are getting. I just put an additional bowl with ice in it and they were afraid of the ice! go figure. Once the ice melted all 3 girls drank a ton... I hope they are feeling better now. I am about to give them a frozen treat I made of canned corn, water, and scratch in a muffin tin.

Luckily they seem pretty alert and active still. They are just panting a lot and one is holding her wings out.

Breeds are Rhode Island Red, Barred Plymouth Rock, and Black Australorp. Thought they were more heat hardy?

Anyone have any additional tricks for helping keep em cool?

i use the typical gravity waterer + wetting 1/2 the ground of the run and give them pools of water to stand in


they will stay in the area that is the coolest --so for my case

it's right under the waterer + on the wet area of the run.. when i let them out .. they will wait for me to fill those pans with water so they can stand in.. if not they will just go back in the run again..

at night.. the temperature can still be around 105 here.. so i put a 2 buckets of water in the coop with them

from the manure location.. they are roosting right above those buckets

since water cools as it evaporates.. so they tend to roost right on top of those buckets


**if i can i'll take a picture of my chicken standing in pools of water for you... each of them taking turn standing in them to cool down

 

[mizz9]

I wet the ground around the run yesterday afternoon and they were SO scared of the water... oops. But after I finished and left them on their own they appreciated pecking around and standing on the wet ground. Will do that again today! Maybe I will try putting a pan of water out. I tried that one day last week and they were not the least interested but maybe they will be now that it is even hotter out.

Mrs K - what about frozen peas instead? I had only given them like 3/4 of a "muffin" of the corn. Not sure if it helped or not. They seemed the same afterwards.

 

[bk15]

My EE hen hates Hose water but she loves puddles of water she WILL stand in a puddle of water that goes all to where the bottom of her crop is and she will stand and in the water and drink and will relax she loves it my other hens don't want anything to do with it

 

[mizz9]

That must be pretty funny to see her "swimming" in the water like that! I saw a video on youtube of a chicken floating in a swimming pool like a duck would. The chicken didn't seem to mind!

The girls are scratching and laying in the wet dirt and panting less now so that's good... it's supposed to be hot for several days so I am glad we are figuring out what works.