can chickens live in an environment in which their only escape from the sun is in the coop??? we're moving our chickens from a shaded area into an area in which they'll only get a reprieve from the sun inside their coop of which they can go in and out freely as they please...
If you live in the South, and they dont free range all day, that aint gonna work! My hen house is hotter than blazes, west sun shines directly on it in the afternoon. They only lay eggs and roost in it. I dont have a run, just my back yard, or the big fenced in garden in the cooler months. pam in TX
Quote:Welcome Pittypatpb! Your location and climate are hugely influential, as is the coop setup that you have. What to be careful of is the temperatures that the chickens will experience. Deep shade can dramatically reduce the temperature== For those of us where it is drought and baking-hot, shade is a life/death matter. If a chicken's temperature is raised to 104 it cannot expell heat fast enough to remain alive. Especially vulnerable to heat are the large, heavily feathered breeds, and the ones with feathered leg and small combs. Arranging for shade will make your life so much less worrisome if you have hot summers... If you go to my BYC page and then switch to the charts-and-quotes page, there is a chart there of the effects of various temperatures on chicken physiology. Also a link to an excellent article on the internet on heat and chickens. Now if you have small breeds with large combs to help them expell heat and you live in a cool climate--maybe shade won't be needed as much. Hope this will help a little--- And if you need shade, maybe you can arrange some temporary shade for the remainder of the summer.
It totally depends on where you live and just how hot it's going to get. If you live in a moderate to hot climate then about the only way it might work is if you have an open air coop. Even that might not work in really hot weather with direct sun on the coop. My chickens only full shade is in the coop but that coop is in my open sided goat barn in deep shade, and is open sided (wire only). That means it's plenty light and airy in there that they go in willingly and don't mind hanging out in there in the hot afternoons. They will likely not go into a dark, hot coop but will try to tough it out outside. Mine also gets plenty of breeze most days but I still run a fan in the afternoons.
I have a coop that I've used the past two years but am not using anymore because it gets too hot. I lost several hens last year, so I made sure to sell all of the hens before July 1st this year. The coop is not shaded and turned into an oven during July and August. Last year I tried shading the run but this wasn't enough. So now I'm only going to use my little red coop that is shaded all day by two Black Walnut trees. It was a tough decision (the big coop can hold 60 chickens, the little red coop can only hold 15), but so far I haven't lost any chickens to the heat this year. And they're so much happier and laying better. I have three main things that I've discovered for myself are important considerations for a coop location... 1) Shade. 2) Close access to water. 3) Electricity.
I would not do that, but I am in Texas. No shade would = dead birds. We even put a window unit AC in our coop day before yesterday.
