Keeping The Chicks Cool Enough?

[KikiDeAnime]

I took our five 1wk old broilers outside as it was nice out. I had to put them in the older hens' coop yard as we're currently trying to fix up the smaller coop. Luckily the older hens are out free ranging like always and have already laid all their eggs for today.

I was wondering what else I could do for our Broiler chicks to keep them cool enough in 80° heat?
I put a 1 gallon water in with them and there's a lot of shade for them.

Huge thanks in advance for any tips and advice!
It's currently 1:28pm at the time of this being posted.

 

[IamRainey]

We fought heat as high as 120˚ last week. I credit people here for lots of good advice.

• Put ice cubes in their water periodically through the day.
• This is a good time for electrolytes in their water too.
• Wet down the ground in the run so they can cool their feet and/or dig into the damp ground to cool off.
• Feed them frozen fruits and vegetables. They'll prefer them to grains and crumbles. Watermelon, grapes, shredded cabbage and cucumbers halved horizontally have been my girls' favs.
• Put bricks or cinderblocks in kitty litter pans of water. The porous materials will absorb the water and act as evaporative coolers.
• I got 10# blocks of ice and put them in an open cooler with pine shavings covering the ice. I found a big block lasted all day even in the worst heat.
• If your run isn't in the shade or covered, hang shade cloth for them.
• I put a tower fan in the coop for my 2 week old chicks.
• Above all, plan to stick around and check on them frequently to respond to their needs.

I am extremely glad to say that my 3 hens and my 5 chicks have all done well while a neighbor lost 2 older hens.

 

[PachecoPeeps]

If you have water bottles, gallon jugs, milk jugs, 2 liters you can use freeze them and use those in different ways to help keep them cool. Use the water bottles in their water. Use the bigger jugs either in large pools of water or just have them out so the chickens can lean on them to cool off.

Depending on your area you can get cheap umbrellas and put those out. Frozen fruit also helps.

If you see a chicken struggling gently deep their feet or place their feet into cool water until they stop panting.

As stated above if you can I would frequently check on them. We’ve been in 100+ days for almost a month and I’m lucky to be on break right now because I’ve been checking on my chickens probably every hour lol