summer

[chicken me]

What do you give to chickens in the summer to cool them down.

 

[Corralejo24]

I give mine frozen grapes or cold watermelon.
No expert here. Seen others do it to help cool them off. Ice cubes in they're water.

 

[waddles99]

Put in a tray of cold water for them to stand on. That really cools them off. One of my ameraucana had heat exhaustion and I stood her in a tray of cold water. It probably saved her life. On top of that, frozen watermelon like mentioned above.

 

[WooingWyandotte]

Yup, ditto on the watermelon!!! I also put Apple cider vinegar in my peeps water. it isn't a coolant, but I figure it probably helps something, lol. I also make sure their water supply is fresh and in the shade.

 

[chicken me]

What do you give to chickens in the summer to cool them down.

 

[aart]

I'd go easy in the frozen fruit......we know what can happen when one eats too much juicy ripe fruit, same goes for chickens....hahaha!
I freeze just the rinds of melons, (I eat the fruit flesh) and give those to them to peck for a chilly treat.

Same goes for ice water....too much at once isn't great for them either, they'll just gorge it back up.
I put a large shallow pan, and some smaller ones, and dump a bunch of ice cubes in there.
They can walk in the cubes to cool their feet and sip on the cold water as the cubes melts.

Deep shade is most important.....dampening the soil in the shade can help...if you live in a dry climate misters can help too.
Air movement in coop can really help...I put a fan in east window to blow some cooler air into coop in early evening.

 

[bobbi-j]

Plenty of water, shade and fresh air.

 

[centrarchid]

I'd go easy in the frozen fruit......we know what can happen when one eats too much juicy ripe fruit, same goes for chickens....hahaha!
I freeze just the rinds of melons, (I eat the fruit flesh) and give those to them to peck for a chilly treat.

Same goes for ice water....too much at once isn't great for them either, they'll just gorge it back up.
I put a large shallow pan, and some smaller ones, and dump a bunch of ice cubes in there.
They can walk in the cubes to cool their feet and sip on the cold water as the cubes melts.

Deep shade is most important.....dampening the soil in the shade can help...if you live in a dry climate misters can help too.
Air movement in coop can really help...I put a fan in east window to blow some cooler air into coop in early evening.

I will emphasize blocking sun late in day. When it gets really hot I like to keep sun off not only the birds, I like to keep it off their housing as well when they are confined. Sun hitting the pen or items used to shade birds can still more directly heat air where chickens are located. You can also look into ways of promoting passive air-flow that preferentially pulls heated air away from chickens. If birds penned on ground you might be able to add a couple wheel barrel loads of soil as a mound. The birds can then scratch burrows into it where they can lay to take advantage of the average (day and night) temperature for the previous days.