Summer can scorch everything, including your chicken flocks. Temperatures over 90°F or 100°F may cause the birds to overheat, resulting in panting, drooping wings, lethargy, and pale combs.
Though chickens can survive the winter, they can’t resist the warm environment.
So, it’s high time for keepers to be alert and take care of their flock. Here are the best ways to keep your chickens cool in the summer.
1. Provide Plenty of Fresh, Cool Water
Hydration is the best way to keep your birds cool and stress-free.
So, make sure you give them fresh water and electrolytes in the bowls or waterers. If you leave water outdoors for a long time, it becomes warmer and harder.
To make cool water for the chicken, you can add a packet or box of ice cubes to the water station.
Also, check the water and change it multiple times a day. Place the water station in the shaded regions. You need to keep water in wide or big containers so chickens can dip their beaks easily.
You can give them a kiddie pool with small bait fish in it.
If your hens are afraid of the kiddie pool, offer them plant saucers (24″ and 18″) filled with ice water.
2. Offer Shade in the Coop and Run
Whether your chickens are indoors or outdoors, they need cool shade. They may get boiled inside the coop under the sun with no shade.
The coop made of metal can burn them inside, so it’s wise to build a coop with wood.
But make sure the coop is under the canopy of big trees, shrubs, and vines. This makes your bird more relaxed on hot days.
Also, they cannot forage under the scorching sun. They need natural or artificial shade in a free-range garden and spacious runs.
For this, you can plant trees sparingly in the backyard or grow bushes or trees against the chicken fence, along the garden boundaries, or near the runs.
You can also stretch some burlap or garden shade netting across a vertical frame.
Besides, you can set up umbrellas, shade cloth, and lean-to structures in the backyards or at least above the run.
The understorey of the coop also provides some shade. So, you need to elevate the pillars of the structure.
3. Improve Coop Ventilation and Airflow
I see many keepers make mistakes when designing a coop without any solution for proper ventilation. Poor ventilation can suffocate chickens and exacerbate heat stress in the coop.
Chickens generate a significant amount of heat, ammonia, and water vapor.
So, you need active and passive ventilation. For passive, the coop requires a window, not like the little vents you have under the ceiling.
It should be spacious and well-ventilated, allowing sufficient air circulation.
Add extra vents running the length of the coop right underneath the eaves. This way, cooler outside air may enter beneath the eaves while hot air will go out underneath the peak.
This setup would be sufficient for temperate or cold climates, but humid places, such as Florida, may require additional solutions.
Besides the large windows on either side, you can install removable roost bars, which allow breeze to move through on hot days and warm nights.
When staying in Florida, my impression was that the nights are warm and comfortable throughout the year, and I needed to keep these windows open all the time to prepare for big storms.
You can also use hardware cloth instead of solid barriers. Position chicken coops in a place that allows natural breezes.
4. Use Fans or Misters for Cooling
For active vents, you can install solar vent fans, which push the hot air out the other side of the coop. A roof turbine, or a whirlybird, also does the same.
It should be a safe fan setup inside and outside the coop.
When it gets really hot at night, I often keep exhaust fans near the ceiling.
You can also position the fan mounted at the back of the coop, with vent louvres in the front.
Besides, you can run a mister hose in the free range or pasture area along the runs for chickens. For this, you can take lawn sprinklers.
Give some drip irrigation lines across the top. As the water runs down, the wind blows through and cools down the earth and grass through evaporative cooling.
The chickens love the misters and feel frosted with calcium by the end of the summer.
There are some meters attached to an app-enabled timer, which can allow you to schedule for hot times and run it whenever you want extra cooling.
It is enough to make the ground wet and cool through mist, but avoid making a huge, muddy, stinky mess.
Also, don’t throw the electric wires around the misted areas.
5. Freeze Treats for Chickens
Chickens love the cold and frozen treats.
I give my birds watermelon, peas, blueberries, grapes, and yogurt after freezing them in the refrigerator, and they enjoy eating the feed.
Fill ice cube tray with feed, oats, and mealworms, add water, and freeze. That’s very easy.
You can also make fruit salads, including frozen fruits, vegetables, herbs, or ice blocks with corn or berries.
Besides, you can also freeze kitchen scraps to feed chickens. These keep the flock cool, filled, and engaged.
6. Give Dust Bath Areas in Shaded Spots
If nothing is provided, chickens find themselves a way to create a dust bath area in the summer under the tree or shade.
You can notice small holes or ditches around the garden or backyard.
Chicken dust bath helps birds regulate temperature and comfort. Not only that, but they can clean their feathers filled with bugs and feel refreshed.
Mix sand, wood ash, and dirt in the container and keep it in shaded areas.
Prevent dust baths from drying out in the sun, but don’t pour water in the mixture, as chickens like loose dust.
To make the dust bath cool, you can place the container in the coop or run with enough shade, not in wet surroundings.
7. Chicken Breeds for Hot Weather
Chickens from a humid climate are more heat-resistant than those from colder regions.
I believe small-sized chickens are far better than larger ones as they have a lower body mass to cool. Also, they have light colored feathers or minimal feathers.
Dark and dense feathers often absorb heat, making chickens feel hotter.
Leghorn, Chantecler, Minorca, Necked Necks, Silkie, Egyptian Fayoumi, Red Star Layers, Golden Comet, and Australorp are some of the best performers in the hot weather.
8. Provide Shallow Water Pans for Cooling Feet
Though chickens don’t flap and swim into water like ducks, they walk in and remain in water with their feet.
This way, they release heat through their feet.
So, free water bottles overnight and float them in a shallow trough or kiddie pool. The shallow pans or trays should be only deep to their feet, not more than that.
Chickens stand in the cool water and drink it.
To avoid bacteria, you need to refresh water very often and daily.
You can also fill some gallon jugs of water and place them in the shade where your chickens often sit. My hens always come around the galloon and sit on top of the ice jug for a while until they feel cold enough and need to forage.
9. Cactus Water
Cactus grow without effort in many of the southern parts of the United States.
Choose prickly pear varieties as they are edible and have great cooling effects. To make it edible for chickens, you need to remove the needles, rinse the cactus, and cut them into pieces.
Then, fill a bowl with fresh water and put some pieces of cactus in the water.
You will see that it starts to create a jelly-like consistency. Now, you’re ready to feed your chickens.
10. Reduce Stress and Overcrowding
Too many chickens in one coop equals more body heat. There is no fixed rule for determining how many chickens are too many in a single flock. It only depends on your coop and feed management.
Anyway, you need to provide enough space for chickens to relax and nest there.
4 sq ft per bird in the coop, 2 feet per bird in the roost bar, all roosts on equal level, and 10 sq ft per bird in the runs.
This allows healthy air circulation and for them to flap their wings and walk around. You should not allow your birds to peck each other for space, as it can disrupt the pecking order.
Also, you need to rotate or separate flocks in hot months. Keep the environment quiet and stress-free.
Hens often fight for their favorite single nest even though there are dozens of nest boxes. So, you can shut their favorite box down for a week and use fake eggs in the other boxes.
Final Thoughts
In addition to cold water, provide deep shade, misters, frozen treats or foods, and vent fans to keep your chickens cool this summer.
Though some chickens like to forage in the rain for a while, they need to dry their feathers to warm them up to a temperate level.
So, don’t sprinkle them with a water hose.
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