Novice needing advice / direction pls!

[CheerfulF0x]

We have dry heat here, but 100 degrees is still 100 degrees. I have mainly Cochins the last few years and some heritage bred Rhode Island Reds. We give each run a wading pool - just a rubber feed tub that is filled with fresh cool water each afternoon - and if you dump it where they are they will think you are AWESOME, nothing like some nice muddy water We also run misters, and since we almost always have some to a lot of wind, and lots of iron in the well water, we use the ones you just attach to the end of a hose so we can position them however/wherever needed. We have many hoses. We wind up replacing the little nozzles a couple of times a year after cleaning them a few times in a jewelry cleaner, and we have inline filters on the hoses to try and slow down the clogging, but when all is said and done, it cools the air a lot. We also spray down the trees and ground around the runs in the afternoons, and put up shade cloth over the runs for the summer.

Thank you very much for your suggestions and input.

I really appreciate the tips/tricks provided.

 

[Alaskan]

You have already gotten great advice..

I will just toss in that you do not want to build a standard coop!

I grew up in the hill county of Texas, and My sister still lives there...

Her coop is solid the bottom, maybe 2.5 feet, then WIRE. Yep, no solid walls at perch level. She does have super deep eves.

She has had chickens in that coop for over 10 years now... and yes on occasion she will get ice or snow... hasn't ever lost a chicken due to temp (hot or cold).

My grandmother's coop in the same area of Texas also was set up like that... all wire from perch level to the roof, with the front wall of the coop solid wire floor to roof.... but her coop was fancier and had shutters that you could close for storms (only for the half walls... there was no way to close the one wall that was wire only floor to roof... but the one all wire wall had a super deep roof overhang/porch). She used that coop for over 30 years...worked great.

Whatever you do... do not make a solid house! That would cook the birds!

Both my sister and my grandmother had/have their coops under deep live oak cover.

 

[aart]

We have dry heat here, but 100 degrees is still 100 degrees.

But the humidity is a killer...and you can use misters!

 

[Mamatomany123]

But the humidity is a killer...and you can use misters!

Yep! We have dry heat and it gets to 120 here. I'll eventually add some a mister to help. So far our hottest has been 105 but we are not in our hot season yet

 

[pozees2]

But the humidity is a killer...and you can use misters!

True, I guess misters don’t cool the air there?

 

[aart]

True, I guess misters don’t cool the air there?

The lower the humidity the better they 'feel/work'.
It's usually 75%+ here during the summer.