4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[Ness3103]

my poor girls are soo hot, i was wondering if it would be ok to spray them with a little bit of water i've got a plant sprayer and i could put it on the mist setting, just wasn't sure if it was a good idea or not

 

i've also got frozen peas and sweetcorn, could i give them a little bit of that to cool them down a bit

[C&T]

Mine love "Sweetcorn Lollipops" as was suggested on here a short while ago.

 

A small corn on the cob straight from the freezer, sometimes suspended or sometimes "thrown" on the ground. They love it.

 

They had once last night, and fair hoovered it all up!!

[madchickenlady]

I've just dunked all of my girls in a shallow trough of water. They now all have soggy drawers, but are much cooler!

[chelsea]

my girls like some cool natural bio yoghurt on hot days.

 

Cucumber chopped from the fridge is nice as it contains a lot of hydrating water.

[Redwing]

I'm suffering from sunstoke myself today!

 

I have tottered outside though and have used the hose on a light mist setting to cool all the hens down which was met with differing levels of enthusiasm

 

I also soaked all of the sunshades

 

I put some bowls of water inside the housing as lots are hovering indoors and added extra water stations outside in the shade

 

Some people also hang up wet sheets as shades and put ice cubes in the water

 

I read the hosepipe tip on another forum and an interesting suggestion on the same thread was that you should feed a small amount in the morning them withdraw food for the rest of the day until its cooler in the evening then feed ad lib once its cooler, it was said that 40% of a hens energy can be used in feeding so it does make a lot of sense and I will probably give it a try

[Ness3103]

thanx for all the suggestions i'm going to be busy tomorrow

[Hen Watch]

My poor darlings were so hot today, one even panting with wings held slightly out. I've never seen them do that before in 2 years of chicken keeping.

 

I've put extra water in the shade where they were free ranging as they couldn't be bothered to go to the run to drink.

 

Also, I encouraged drinking by putting half a slice of bread in a cup of water untill really soggy (almost broken up like soup) and they hoovered up most of the bread water at the same time.

 

They seemed worst at about 4pm today, but they are OK now at 9pm.

[house-elf]

some great ideas here, i noticed that my girls were hot yesterday. I let them out to range and they went under a bush, dug up the weeds , and just sat down on the cold soil !

[Henhathnofury]

The panting really scared me at first..their little tongues hanging out. They hate laying at the moment and one pushed out a soft-shelled egg last night. I am going to water them later....

[ubereglu]

Spice was suffering both yesterday and today due to the heat, she's also black and has a hurt foot so is generally found sitting under the hedge in an attempt to keep cool-I was a bit worried about her not eating in the morning, but thanks to Redwing I know it's just to conserve energy...she'd eaten a bit as her crop had a bit of food in.

 

In an attempt to stop her panting yesterday I dribbled water from the hosepipe into her beak, which she seemed to like a lot and it helped her cool down as she then came outside for a bit.

[meezers]

I tip a beaker full of crushed ice ( from the ice dispenser ) into their water bowl each afternoon, they love it. The little bits get gobbled down and the bigger bits are flicked out , squabbled over and chased around like ice hockey pucks

[saracook31]

Although my hens are in quite a shaded area it was still very humid today in their run..

 

I put an apple and some old watermelon in the freezer for a while.

Put it out this afternoon and it went down a treat! Also put ice cubes in there buckets of water...

 

[Falkor]

I have been making chookcicles!

 

A tuperware half filled with veggies/fruit etc topped up with water and put in the freezer overnight!

 

The Orps are chipping away at it as we speak I wonder if B&Q sell little hammers and chisels for them

Edited July 1, 2009 by Guest

[Minky]

Frozen treats is a great idea! I've been putting lots of ice in their water of a morning and plenty of 'wet' treats from the fridge like melon, cucumber, apple etc. Wetting the sunshades is also a brilliant tip, will def be doing that in the future!

[alet_chicken]

I have been wetting the Cube and sunshades in the afternoon since the beginning of the week. It seems to cool everything down inside the run ... except for the chickens, who dash about like daft things trying to catch water drops running down the sides. Priceless...