Poorly chicken

[mjostephens@yahoo.com]

I was wondering if anyone out there has the eglu in a climate that gets really hot.  It was 111 yes (three 1's), in Phoenix today.  At night it doesn't get a whole lot cooler.  So, I have been freezing water bottle and a plastic container and putting it in the cube before shutting the door.  Im sure by the middle of June toward July we will be getting close to the 118, mark.

I also have a water container they can drink from in the cube.

I don't want to leave the cube door open because if they get out and lay up against the fencing, a predator could snatch them.  So I am just wondering if anyone else has extreme heat in their location and how have your chickens been at night closed up in the eglu cube?

I don't want to come out and find them all dead and stiff like a stuffed animal, so I am looking for all suggestions.   

I know the cube keeps them warm in the summer, I am just concerned whether it traps the heat inside during the summer?  

[The Dogmother]

Depends on which cube you have... Mark 1 is  definitely designed to insulate, so keeps warmer in te winter and cooler in the summer. It is made of a totally different material from the newer version.

Frozen water bottles are good, but my only worry about putting them in the coop is the possibility of condensation, but I think that the atmosphere where you are is probably dry enough to counteract that.

A chicken's body temperature is normally around 105deg, so pretty hot already, they can't sweat, so mainly lose heat via panting, air flow through their feathers and drinking cold water (excretory heat transfer). So pop frozen water bottles or freeze bag packs in their drinkers, provide more drinkers and mist the grass or littler in the shade where they tend to sit.

[Beantree]

We haven't got a cube but we do see some high temperatures. All the coops are shaded by trees and all are fitted with a 'summer door', which is weldmesh and secure. I think you need to construct something which leaves the door open but which won't let the chickens past it.

[mullethunter]

Something like a ‘summer door’ as Beantree describes is what I was thinking you could make perhaps? 

[Daphne]

I reckon you will have hotter temps than any of us experience, even though some of us are in hot bits of Europe.  I love Phoenix BTW!

I would try the summer door as the others suggest.  Could you move the cube/run so it wasn' next to the fence, or increase the predator-proofness of the fence at all?  I would also be rigging up some shade netting and regularly misting outside. Its a real quandary, if I were you I'd also take a look at some other fora (heresy!) particularly in Australia as well as US because everyone else must have the same issues as you.

 

 

[ca1rstine]

We are in SW Florida (hot and humid) and we have taken the dropping tray out of ours cube so air circulates more easily.

we have a layer of straw underneath the coop so can easily clean poop away from underneath  

Our cube is inside a walk in run so we’ve also put a shade sail over the top of the run to keep the cube cooler in the day. And a “mister” Hose to spray the top to encourage cooling by evaporation

also training climbers to grow over top of run to increase shade/cool 

[mjostephens@yahoo.com]

thats a great idea, I am going to try that.