How I keep my chickens cool

Adelaide is due for another heatwave and today the temperature is forecast to be 41 degrees! Chicken owners all know the signs of heat stress, wings out from the body and panting.  When there is a heatwave forecast, these are the things I do to try and prevent my chickens from getting heat stress, like poor Penguin above panting in the heat.

A quick cool down for any animal showing great distress is of course to cool them down with water. Here is Penguin after getting sprayed with water from a little spray bottle. I sprayed water under his wings to get them wet and all over his body. You can tell from the photo that he wasn't too impressed with this treatment. But I can only do this if I am at home at the time. When I have to be at work I take some preventative measures.

First thing was that I got to know the chicken pens, especially in relation to the amount of sunlight that they get throughout the day. Penguin's pen gets quite a bit of sunlight, with his run going into shade in the late afternoon. So, with hot, sunny weather on the way, I put up a temporary tarp to offer a bit more shade.  Secondly, I soak the ground in their favourite shady areas the night before with a sprinkler. The chickens instinctively seek out the shady spots, and if the ground it cool and damp under it, they get too cool down better. I can't have the sprinkler going in their favourite spot during the day (they don't like getting sprayed!)

I always believe that every run should have a tree or plants where the animals can shelter under. Penguin's pen has an apple tree, where they spend most hot days sitting under. In this photo you can see me soaking the ground with one of my favourite sprinklers. It's called a wobble or shaker sprinkler. I like it because you can use it with very low pressure and it doesn't use up a lot of water. On hot days, I like to have a sprinkler running in this run (since it does get quite a bit of sun), just to cool the air around it slightly.

 

We usually have a pump to pressurize the sprinkler line, but I don't fancy having an exposed pump on all day during the heat. This sprinkler is able to use the low water pressure from my bore tank and it waters a small diameter around it. So just enough to provide some water in the air without wetting the chickens completely. I sprinkle areas where the chickens don't really hang out, but it just provides a wet and cool environment in the pen.

Buffy's run on the other hand, stays pretty much in shade on the top level where the coop is situated. The lower side off the run gets sun  at around midday to early afternoon. After that, the tall gum trees to the west shade out most of the sun. I need to modify the bore line to I can have a sprinkler going there throughout the day too, but at the moment, we drag an extra long hose to the run in the evenings and soak the ground with water. During the day, lots of bowls of water are strewn about the place. I also add in frozen bottles of water to the bowls.

So what about nesting boxes?

The nest box is usually a small confined and dark space for the hens to lay their eggs. But it can get really warm and hot in those boxes. So this is what I came up with. 

Ice packs, preferably a foam one or one in a hard plastic case. I move aside the bedding or straw and place the pack underneath. Usually off to one side so they are not sitting directly on the ice pack. Then I place the straw above it, not too thick a layer of straw. It cools the straw down but the hen is never in direct contact with the ice pack. The great thing about straw, is that it is a great insulator. At the end of the day, the pack is usually still frozen.

 Now you see it....

Now you don't. If you place your hand over it, the straw should feel cool but not ice cold. If not, you put too much straw on.

What about sitting hens?

Effie has decided to go broody and is sitting on eggs that are due next week. The coop that she is in is made of metal, so the last time it was 40 plus degrees, the temperature in there was well over 50 degrees. I need to keep her cool! So again, ice packs!

This is my setup for her. Directly above her, I have placed a 2L frozen bottle. A milk bottle filled with water will do. It sits in direct contact with the wood. On top of that, I place a layer of straw and just to hold it all in place, a plastic container. This bottle cools the wood, which in turn cools the air above her. Again the straw insulation means that at the end of the day, the bottle still contains ice. I usually swap the ice bottle the next morning and it is usually still cold when I do the swap!

I place a bowl of water in front of her, but beneath that, is a small ice pack, to keep the water cool.

The next box next to her also has an ice pack beneath the straw, this time, against the wood partition, again to cool that wood down, plus any other hen that needs to lay.

At the time, the temperature in the coop was about 29 degrees. When I put the temperature probe in, it showed 24 degrees in the box. It has so far kept her cool on hot days without affecting the eggs directly. I'm also going to put a wet towel over the top half of the opening later, to help cool the air a bit more.

Of course there is also the frozen fruit. I chop up fruit and fill it up with water and freeze it the night before. I then put this out for them to drink and play with. Have to admit though, this doesn't seem to be a big hit with my chickens. I come home and see the fruit still in the bowl -__-

 

They much prefer a chilled melon wedge which they can peck at throughout the day.

Oh well, I hope this helps anyone else with their animals. Keep cool everyone!