Chillin With my Ladies: How we're blowing away the heatwave.

It's no secret we are in the midst of a major heatwave here in Dallas. Temperatures today topped just over 110 degrees Fahrenheit, with indexes in the high teens. To top things off, we've had one small rain event in the past two months. My home is conditioned at a frigid 82 degrees and I say frigid because it feels like a meat locker when I come in from the outside.

There's no escape for our flock though. The heat keeps coming and thankfully we haven't lost a single chicken yet. I've recently got some advice from Dun Hagan Gardening that the secret to keep Chickens alive in a heat wave is a three part recipe.

1. Shade, shade, and more shade. That's one thing we're at no loss for. The aviary is under a big Pecan tree and it's covered again by a shade tarp to keep out hawks.

2. Clean, fresh, cool water. Check. We got that too. We even put ice cubes in it. We stop short at the frozen margaritas, though. (We don't want to spoil them.)

3. Air circulation. No check. The shade tarp does a good job of fending off wind. There's little to no circulation in the aviary.

I decided that when the temps outside are 110, that we're gambling with their lives. I'll spare you all of the details, but suffice it to say that Wal-Mart is not my favorite place to purchase things. Two fans later, we now have circulation in our coop. A large fan was purchased, and works beautifully to keep the big chicks chilled a little. They even stopped panting!

 

A large box fan for the large chickens...

 

...and a small fan for the small chickens.

I decided to get a little fancier with the small birds. I built a small cage and placed in it a frozen 2 litter bottle of water in front of a small fan as an impromptu a/c unit. The jury is still out on that one, but at a minimum, they do have air circulating in their pens. -Jason