Too hot help

[Cryss]

I'm in NJ and a couple of weeks ago it was in the high 90s with the same humidity. My girls go from 6 years old to 3 month old chicks. They're coop is an old goat shed (the previous owners had 2) with a large run attached. We have wooded wetlands behind us. I put the older girls out to free range with a waterer filled with ice water and a large bowl of frozen treat cubes(berries and vegetables in ice cubes.) The little ones I kept in the pen, they're not ready to go out by the woods. In side the coop I put a 5 quart stainless steel dog bowl with blocks of ice in it and I had a fan blow across the ice. Chicken air conditioning. I kept this up round the clock for 2.5 days. The big girls would roost at night in their regular spots but the little ones were huddled around the dog dish. I tried my neighbor's baby pool but none of my girls were interested. Neither we her chickens.

Hi New Jersey! Warren County here! Weren't those hot days fun? Good grief! I like your ideas, might try a few of those next time round. Frozen half filled bottles of water scattered around the run worked pretty good though.

 

[Jrzebra]

Hi there,
First, I'm very sorry about your girl. I love mine very much too & it is always hard to lose one.
We have been having a terrible heat wave here too, and I've been spending most of my days trying to keep all the animals cool & comfy. I have a few different coops & I've noticed that the chix that seem the happiest in this heat are the ones I let free range in the back yard; they have the option of moving wherever it is coolest, & they always end up scratching, lounging & dirt-bathing in the moist soil under my rose bushes, where a drip system comes on every day & keeps the ground moist & cool. There is something about plants- the shade & the cooling effect they have on the ground around them is just so much nicer than what we can provide with shelters or shade cloth.
Some of my other birds, who are confined in a large coop, prefer to roost high up in the shaded areas, holding their wings away from their bodies to keep cool. When it's very hot out, the ground can get incredibly hot & act like a heat-sink. It will still radiate heat long after the sun goes down. If you give your birds lots of choices to roost outside in the shade, that may help.
Also, a mister with a fan on low speed behind it is great too- it mimics what a swamp cooler does, & you can get a barn fan made for being outdoors.
Hope some of this helps, good luck.

I lost one of my girls the other night. I’ve been putting them up in their coop and closing the door because they were squawking all night and I thought they were feeling unsafe in their pen. I would put ice bottles up there to hopefully cool down the temperature but when I opened it up yesterday morning two came out and one was laying there. I’m heartbroken. So last night I brought the two girls left into the house to sleep. They seem fine and stopped breathing with her mouths open. But we are going to start hitting temps of 111°. Should I just keep them inside for a few of the hottest hours of the day? They’re locked in a crate with a perch, water and food.
They’re outside pen has plenty of shade, plenty of ventilation, a mister, frozen water bottles, ice water. I’m just wondering if there’s other things I can do to cool them down besides frozen treats, water bottles and a mister? I was thinking about getting a swamp cooler but not sure if that will work outside? everybody at the feed store and other owners that I know around me keeps saying that They’ll adjust and be fine and then I wake up to one dead. I can’t lose another one. I need to figure out something. I need help please.