Whew! It's hot.

[FHF ChickenMom]

Well, for some of us it is. We're generally not used to these temps (88° - 91°) at this time of year in WNY. Sorry, I'm one of the ones whining about it..only because of my worry for the welfare of my animals. So, that said, my three BOs have really neat digs: 25' x 25' with a 70% sun block mesh material cover over all top and three sides, a section on the back that also has a tarp for full shade. Lift the mesh on one side and they have a patch with full sun. But the last couple of days have been hot, they seem to be fine but there's been no air moving - no breeze at all. Hubby suggested a fan to move some air around. What do you think? We've got two more days of this and today is going be especially bad. Thanks!

 

[Brummie Pekin]

One thing you can do is get a Mister attachment for your hose and hang the hose above an area of the coop so you get a light sprinkle of water and the ground temp under the hose gets pretty cool. Another thing you could do is get bottles of water and freeze them and place them somewhere inside your coop, that way if your birds get too hot they can sit next to the frozen bottles and cool down.
Hope this helps

 

[HeyHey]

I live in the south and mine have a kiddie pool. It's so funny to see them just standing or sitting in it.

 

[FHF ChickenMom]

One thing you can do is get a Mister attachment for your hose and hang the hose above an area of the coop so you get a light sprinkle of water and the ground temp under the hose gets pretty cool. Another thing you could do is get bottles of water and freeze them and place them somewhere inside your coop, that way if your birds get too hot they can sit next to the frozen bottles and cool down.
Hope this helps

Thank you!!!

 

[FHF ChickenMom]

I live in the south and mine have a kiddie pool. It's so funny to see them just standing or sitting in it.

Laughing! I wanted to get a kiddie pool for them, but the people who raised them for the first couple of months, said they tried and they didn't want to get their feet wet??? Big chickens! Scared to get their feet wet! LOL

 

[HeyHey]

 

[adrikeen]

@FHF
Thanks for starting this one! I completely agree with you! I was out with the girls yesterday and it looks like Fall....leaves are already starting to turn....but it's 90 degrees out! I was going to remove their shade panels and start winter prep but that is going to wait!

 

[andreanar]

Yup 90 degrees here too! Ugh.. I watered down their run, put ice blocks in their water, and put out frozen watermelon chunks, I also threw down a pile of peat moss for them to dig in. I have electrolytes in their water, but its just so hot and humid, I hope its enough.

 

[aart]

Wicked hot here too, for the last 6 days....one more day to go.
Tho the humidity is fairly low, that helps a lot...
.....was cloudy today that helped even more.
I gave them a dose of electrolytes yesterday.

Fan won't help much, they don't perspire but it can help cool the coop off later in day.

My birds are confined with no great deep shade for last half of the day so I have to be vigilant during heat waves. I do have shade cloths up on run, which helps, but still not deep shade.

I put out large shallow pans of ice cubes late afternoon, they walk in and sit on them and sip the water as it slowly melts...used to add water but they would gorge on too much too fast, I have seen a chicken suffer from an 'ice cream headache'.

To help cool down the coop I also have a box fan in the east window of coop, where it's shady most the day, and turn it on late afternono...blows cooler air into and pushes hot air out.

To determine heat stress levels I go by activity level, if panting and wing holding seems extreme, I throw out a few treats to see how everyone is moving.

Had hen suffer heat exhaustion/stroke last summer, she was standing stock still and let me walk right up to her(not at all normal for this bird). I determined she could not see out of one eye at all and the other was dicey. I started hydrating her with Qtip soaked in Sav-a-Chik solution held against the side of her beak, had to rub under her beak and the front of her neck to get her to swallow at first. Did this until she got too stressed, about 10 minutes, put her in a cage with a fan nearby to rest. Repeated this about every hour for half the day until she would drink out of a cup held in front of her. She recovered and I also gave the rest of the flock a dose of Sav-a-Chik solution in an open waterer(I use horizontal nipples on waterers), it really seemed to reduce the heat stress so now do that regularly when the heat waves are extreme and days long. Just a half gallons worth every couple days.