Too hot hens

[bossybetty]

Due to the 115+ temps we had here in Illinois this summer, we lost two of our hens. Neither of our Easter Eggers made it. I put a box fan in their coop, I put frozen water jugs behind the fan to blow cool air, I made sure there was lots of shade and fresh water, even added ice! We put frozen jugs on the floor of their coop so they could sit by them and stay cool, which they did.

After all that effort, we STILL lost two girls. What else could we have done? A/C in the coop is out of the financial realm of possibility, although we are talking about trying to find a way to hook up a small a/c unit to solar panels.

Do you guys have any suggestions? Maybe an idea we didn't think of?

 

[greenegglover]

Is your coop shaded? Mine is under a large Maple tree. The young chickens in a small pen have shade from the pen, but I put out a very large sport umbrella to shade food and water. My older girls are doing fine but the ones I hatched this spring struggled more than the older ones....not sure why but those two I brought in loved the bath tub for the evening...lol