Oh honey, I'm so sorry. In this heat we ourselves have to fill the water containers several times a day as they drink like mad in this weather. Maybe he did fill it and they drank it? Or maybe he forgot. It was an accident, albeit an avoidable one. Me, personally, even at the expense of being late, I'd double check behind when he takes care of the birds from now on, but I'm sure you already thought of that. My kids accidentally did that to me too. I've been laid up for a few weeks now after being in a car accident, and getting out to the coop has been...difficult, to say the least. I have to walk over uneven ground to the fencing, and then step OVER the fencing, and I suffered more nerve damage than I already had in the accident, and it's affecting my right leg so that I have a lot of trouble lifting it. So, for the first 2 weeks the kids were doing a good job of filling the food and water. They even filled the water in the pool for the ducks daily. The only problem? There were a bunch of teenage chicks in the coop and my kids didn't take into account the fact that the babies couldn't jump up into food to eat, so basically they were eating the scratch and scraps we tossed them daily, and grass. I was able to tolerate the pain one morning and I went out to the coop to check on my birds and I found one of the babies dead, a little cockerel. I was puzzled, cause he was the largest and the only one that COULD get into that food dish. I had the kids bury him while I went to check on the other babies. I found the rest nearly starved to death. I was very upset at this point, so I had the kids bring them inside, set them in a brooder, and give them food and water. Well, come to find out my kids thought that Ellie, one of those babies, was doing just fine, so they didn't bring her in. Almost all the chicks were black, so I hadn't noticed that Ellie wasn't in the brooder until my older DD comes running in the house to tell me she had died out in the coop. More anger. Of the ones in the bator, I lost 3 more, including my younger DD's Mottled d'Uccle cockerel. We are now down to 3 surviving chicks out of 8. My kids felt awful, and I felt stupid for not telling them to set a lower food dish for the babies, but in my pain, it slipped my mind completely. I've had the survivors in the brooder for a few days now and they are eating and drinking well and putting weight back on. I'm left with a White Cochin cockerel, a Black Cochin cockerel, and a Mottled d'Uccle pullet. When I finally get around to putting the next group outside, their food and waterer from their brooder is going out with them. And just due to this horrid heat I lost a Speckled Sussex pullet. This summer is not turning out to be a good one. I forgave the kids though, because it was really my fault, not theirs. Maybe you could talk to your husband, explain how much your chickens mean to you, and let him know that chickens NEED to have a constant source of water in this heat or they will die, in case he hasn't figured that out yet. I really feel for you. I know what it's like to lose a special bird.
