Need ideas for 100 Degree Plus Days

[clynlarson]

My flock is wilting and I'm worried. How are others keeping small backyard flocks? Mine have plenty of water, some shade and there hen house and when I come home from work they are panting hard. I will appreciate any advice!!!!

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

Welcome to the forum! I use shallow pans filled with ice. They walk in it, and as the ice melts, they have fresh cold water to drink/play in. I also give mine frozen veggies, and soak down their house and outdoor areas.

 

[ADozenGirlz]

Quote:
First, let me say:

Many people freeze water bottles and put them in shady spots on hot days for the girls to cool off on, others feed them frozen watermelon. Some birds will wade in shallow puddles or kiddie pools of water (not mine though!). Some people use mister systems to cool things off.

Some birds like to stand in front of a fan if you have electricity in your coop.

These hot days are rough on the girls and you're right to be concerned.
Good luck!

 

[bburn]

I am home right now and glad of it. The heat index was 113 at 6pm today. I go out several times a day and take ice to my chickens. I freeze water in sour cream and cottage cheese containers. I take them out and put them in their house and out under the satilite dish we use for shade. We have a hanging waterer in the house but we still use the one they used when they were little. I put water with lots of ice in it several times a day. This is just really hard on them. I am grateful there is lots of shade for them out there.
It is funny to watch them though. They don't walk from the hen house to the shade of the dish....they run! We just have to get them through this heat!
We have also fed them cantalope and watermelon the last few days. They really seem to enjoy it.

 

[trooper]

I live in Va. and we are having a heat proble this summer.I leave my main entrance door open.I have a run for them to enjoy.I also have windows open on two sides one of which has a fan in it blowing down in the middle of the coup floor.I also have another small fan that I have blowing air down.My coupe is 8'X8' and I have 15 chickens and 4 ducks.They seem to get a little warm but they are doing good.The Humidity has also been bad,but they are doing good.

 

[clynlarson]

Thank you so much for the speedy reply. Part of my family lives in OR & I wonder it ya'll really know HOT as we experience it in OK

It's just 8:00 p.m. and the temp has dropped to 98. I did soak everything down this evening and tomorrow I will try the ice, but it won't last more than an hour.

Have you ever heard of giving chickens a kiddie inflatable pool? My coop is not all that big but maybe I could fit one in, although as a kinda' sorta' novice I am afraid they might drown.

I need all the help I can get because my chickie babes, as I call them, are miserable.

Thanks again.

Ya'll are GREAT! I'm in trouble with the city and plan to win. I'll stay an active member of your site and keep you posted.

Oh my, I just can't say thanks enough!

 

[peachlover]

What I do, which I learned here on BYC, is cut my watermelon in half scoop out the what I want with an ice-cream scooper, and fill the watermelon with crushed ice. They love it.

 

[Barry Natchitoches]

Here's an idea:


Build them a temporary wind tunnel.


Here's one way to do this (you can modify this idea to better suit your own situation):


Take a pair of sawhorses and place them far enough apart to support a piece of 1/4 inch, 8 feet by 4 feet plywood. You don't need anything thicker than that, though if you have thicker, it surely will work too.


Now, get a thick, dark tarp -- the kind with holes/grommits in it. Make sure it is at least 12 feet long and wide enough to touch the ground on both sides after you set it up on the plywood. Take that tarp and hang it on the plywood the same way that you would hang a tablecloth on a table, except that you need to have the tarp long enough to touch the ground on three of the sides (but NOT four sides, since you need to leave the fourth side open for the chickens to wander in and out). Take tent stakes and string to secure the two sides of the tarp that run the length of the future tunnel to the ground (that is why you need a tarp with grommits in it). You do this so that the tarp doesn't fly all over the place once the fan is turned on. Alternatively, you could use 2 by 4's to weight down the long sides of the tarp if the tarp is long enough to allow for that.


On one end of the "tunnel" you place a fan -- preferably a rather strong air circulator. Those cheap, plastic, Lasko box fans really don't circulate much air. Lowes and Northern Tools sell good box fans for the job (with metal blades) for about $40 bux.


You will need to place that fan at the end of the wind tunnel that you will close up with hanging tarp.


Put the fan inside the tunnel, but at the end of it, and then turn it on, even though it is not plugged in yet. Because you will need to close that end of the tunnel down with tarp and tent stakes, you want the fan to remain in the on position (and the fastest speed). You will control whether it is turned on or off by plugging the thing into the outdoor wall socket, or else in or pulling the plug out of the outdoor wall socket.


After you put the fan into the makeshift tunnel and then close up the end where the fan is, it is time to run an outdoor extension cord to the fan. Make sure that the point where the fan's cord plugs into the outdoor extension cord is protected from water and rain. If you have no other way to do this, use alot of electrical tape to cover over that union and make it water proof. That's what I do, and it works, as long as I use enough electrical tape to cover every thing up really well. Then I just plug the outdoor extension cord into the outdoor electrical socket built into my outdoor wall, and frankly, I don't even unplug it during rainstorms because the way they designed and built that socket, it doesn't let water in.


Meantime, I can run that fan 24/7 -- even when it is raining -- because the fan itself is underneath the tarp covering, and the tarp covering is tied well to the ground with some wire and tent stakes.


But, of course, the chickens don't need the wind tunnel when it rains. They need the wind tunnel on days like today, when it is 100 plus degrees.


I built this makeshift wind tunnel inside their chicken yard. I put some food and water at its entrance, and then let the chickens decide when they want to go inside there to escape the heat. Frankly, they spent the entire day inside their tunnel today, until near dusk, as it is cooler than their regular henhouse. Other days, when it is not so hot, they don't spend alot of time in their tunnel, as they prefer the sunshine.


When the worst of the summer is over, I'll just disassemble the whole thing. It will take only a few minutes (the most time consuming part of the disassembly will be when I take all that electrical tape off of the place where the fan plug meets the outdoor extension cord). I can then use the plywood for other building projects or save it till next year. I will save the tarp for next year too, while the outdoor extension cord will be used this winter to provide power to the ceramic heater I have in the coop.

 

[our 5 chickie babies]

Hello We know about the heat it has been very bad here in VA.This year.We have a store bought waterer that sits on a cinder block and holds a couple gallons of water.We take used 24oz plastic soda bottles and fill them with water and let them freeze overnight.then in the morning we go out cut the bottle and get the block of ice out and put it in their waterer.We do this 3 times a day and their water stays cool all day.So far even with over 100 degree days this has worked great for us and our babies.
Good luck!!
JIM&LINDY

 

[Boo-Boo's Mama]

I use gallon milk jugs, juice bottles, 1 liter club soda and 22 oz soft drink bottles...freeze these daily...use my TSC yard wagon to haul them to the chicken run each day.

Four juice bottles go in the cat litter bucket waterer to chill the water, one of the 1 ltr soda bottles is hung on the side of a hutch in the run--as it melts they drink from it, gallon milk jugs go in 2 rabbit hutches and in Rubbermaid containers turned on their side in the chicken run...the hens love these...they get in with the bottles, other bottles are used in more Rubbermaid containers on their sides...the girls sit on the bottles...put some on top of the Rubbermaid feed box where they sit on these, too. When the day is done, I empty all the bottles on the sand in their run so that the sand is damp the next day. The girls love the damp sand; dig holes to sit and chill!

I have a fan going 24/7.