Very hot day

Another horribly hot day, even worse, than a week ago.  The poor chickens all that suffering in the heat again!

Just now the temperature was 44C.

And just now, as a last resort I dipped two of my chickens, the older ones, in a bucket of cool water.  I was afraid they wouldn't make it, they were panting so heavily, wings held up, and just looked so miserable as if they were ready to give up.

As I was holding them down in the bucket with the water coming up to about chest level, it was so interesting to feel the reaction of their bodies.

I expected them to be fighting with me, but no, just the opposite.  I could feel their muscles relax immediately.  Then the panting stopped and they were just enjoying it!  As if " ahhh, this feels sooo good...".  I let them have the bath for about half a minute, maybe it's enough to cool the blood a bit I thought.

Important update: I talked to our vet this morning and he advises to only do the dipping when the weather is dry.  In humid weather the chickens could get sick from this!



Apart from ice blocks in their water throughout the day, the girls also got some cottage cheese, straight from the fridge to cool them in the inside as well.  I often give them some, they just love it!

Chooks loving the cool cottage cheese

Yuuuum!

It's generally not advised to give dairy to chickens, but this is all raw, with all the enzymes intact.  I made it from raw soured milk.  I don't think they would have any allergies from this, plus it's great probiotics for them!

Fish net to catch chickens

This morning I ran over to the camping store to buy this:

If it really comes to having to have to bring my chooks inside because of the heat or something, I need to catch them quickly.

The two older ones are very tame; they'd come to me, but the new young ones are pretty flighty.  I don't want to run around chasing chickens in the heat, wouldn't be good for either of us.  Appearently this instrument is the thing to use in such situation.

Now I'm off to cover all my veggie beds.


Update:

I covered all my beds with double net cover.  The whole garden looks kind of silly.   Not very attractive.

everything is covered and shaded

all but the grapes are covered

Really, how much heat and sun can grapes take?
I am thinking maybe a lot, but it might not be so.  I suppose we'll find out at the end of this day.


Thankfully the temperature is still quite okay, about 32 celsius at 11 am, maybe it will not reach the predicted height of 43 ...

Shade for chickens

  

I really hope we are ready for tomorrow's extreme heat ...  We have prepared as much as we could to keep the chickens safe; they are the only ones vulnerable, everyone else (dogs, cat, people) can stay in the nice cool air-conditioned rooms inside.

Problem is we have a couple of hours around the middle of the day when there is really hardly any shade anywhere in the backyard.

It's going to be around 43ºC (109ºF)! tomorrow ...

On the weekend, after searching through numerous forums and chook sites to find good solutions, we have decided on a few things.

First, we decided to install some heat reflecting cover over the chooks 'day house' which is inside the north side boundary fence.  We were planning to use something like the windscreen shades with that silvery coating, except we needed a whole big sheet; about 2m by 3m.

Couldn't find any in the camping shops or hardware.

But, at Bunnings, at the building insulation isle we found a kind of silver coated sheeting called SilverWrap, 1.30m wide and almost 30m long.  For about $50.

It looked just the thing we needed.  We bought some double sided tape for fixing it to the fence.

At home we laid it out and cut two pieces each 3.5m in length.

Laying out the SilverWrap

Two pieces are cut off

Long edges are overlapped and fixed together with double sided tape (it actually came from my sewing box and was used to fix clothing)

Cut edge tidied up

Fixed it to top of fence with industrial double sided tape

The bottom is simply secured on the ground with bricks

The sheet covers the day house with plenty of overhang at each end. There is enough room for the 4 chooks we think if they are stuck there for the day.

The chickens seem to like their new improved day house.  It must be much cooler than before.

some other things we can do:

• putting large blocks of ice in their water
• watering frequently around them to wet the ground
• put water in trays as wading pools although my chooks don't seem to like this
• cold watermelon or cottage cheese (they love this!)
• putting frozen water bottles around their house so they can sit near them
• if humidity is low, dip them in a bucket of cool (not icy!) water for about half a minute max.  Don't do it when it's humid!! They can get sick!

As a last resort if nothing will seem to work I will bring them inside in the laundry.

But the best would be - and I've made a mental note of this in case we ever move - to have the chook run and house under the shade of decidious trees (they breath a lot and cool the air more) and other plants, maybe even in two layers if possible.