yesterday's high was 87°F.
Eek, that was fast!
I love walking in thick fog. Driving in thick fog... not so much.
We only got a four month break! It's pretty unusual. March temps should still be in the 60s-70s. This is May weather. Weird.
Extremes anywhere are hard. Hopefully this year your hell months won’t last so long.Shade, fans, misters, ice in the waterers, ice in tubs and trays to wade and sit in, frozen water bottles to lay against, frozen treats like peas and berries to pick at, plus we add electrolytes to the water.
I bought a bunch of these 10"x13"x5" trays. I fill them with water and keep stacks of them in our chest freezer. We set them out around the run and swap them for new ones throughout the day as they melt.
You know how when it's brutally cold during winter and you have to do something outdoors so you bundle up and run out and do whatever it is and run back inside as quickly as possible?
It's like that for us during the eight months of summer. We have to cover up to go outside: hat, sunglasses, shade cloth draped around your neck, shade gloves for your hands, long sleeved shirt and long pants, all thin cotton, always thin cotton (I've come to hate thin cotton clothes; even good quality ones feel cheap).
We dash out into the heat, quickly add ice to the waterers then run back inside as fast as we can. An hour later we do it again to swap out the ice block trays. We do that all day. Out, and back in as fast as you can.
No one wants to stay outside when it's this hot so we use the cameras in the coop and run to keep an eye on the hens. If anyone looks like they're struggling we have hospital cages set up indoors so we can bring them inside and cool them down.
We've only had to do that a few times. One of our EEs struggles in the heat almost as much as I do, poor thing. The black Australorps seem to handle it best.
It's stressful keeping an vigilant eye on the chickens and managing all the hot weather stuff all day, every day, month after month. Sometimes despite your best efforts chickens die in the extreme heat. There's only so much you can do. This will be our flock's second summer. So far we've been lucky.
