Hot Hot Hot!

The temperature yesterday got to a whopping 37 degrees celcius... whew! Thankfully we have the pool outside and the AC running inside. My Mom came over and we and the kids spent the afternoon in the pool. As the the chickens, man did I run around frantic for a while making sure they didn't overheat. I have read plenty about chickens dying from the heat and yesterday was definitely HOT! I found a great link on a BYC thread of a page about keeping your chickens cool. From the link I followed a few of their suggestions until the chicks stopped panting. I wet a towel and covered the open part of the run to add shade and some evaporation cooling. I also wet the ground, put in a water/ice bath, put a bucket of ice in front of a fan, threw down frozen watermelon for them to eat and put in a plastic bin with an ice pack at the back and placed the sand box inside it to create a cool room. I also just threw down some ice into the run and put a plate of ice in the cool... needless to say, I quickly ran out of ice. Today I am a bit more prepared since it is suppose to be another scorching day. I have large zip lock bags full of water freezing in the freezer, a big bag of ice from the store and 3 ice packs ready to go for this afternoon. I have already wet a towel and placed it on top of the run and have the fan going. I may also wet a second towel and place it on the floor of the run to create even more evaporation cooling... with the fan blowing and ice bags lying around it should keep the breeze a cool and the chicks comfortable.