Chickens and Heat

Here in the Twin Cities, we're having our second severe heat wave of the summer.  It's been in the mid-90s for the past few days with dew points close to 80.  The heat index has been hovering around 110.  You can just walk from the building to your car and break a sweat.

Now put on a down coat.

The chickens are doing their best to stay cool.  They hang out in the shade, dig holes into the dirt under trees, flap their feathers, and drink lots of water.  I do my best to make sure their water stays full and cool (I put ice filled water bottles in their waterers). 

I keep the coop as wide open as I can, both day and night - even when they go to bed.  But there just hasn't been a decent breeze - except when storms blow through.  Then I can't keep the windows open for fear of getting wet litter or chickens.

If you're a hen, and you're ovulating, well, you have to push out an egg in this weather.  In the coop.  In a nesting box. Now, today, all the chickens did this - I got six eggs today.  However, Buffy seems to have decided today was the day to go broody - that's when a chicken decides she wants to become a mom and sit on a bunch of eggs.

When I got home from work, I went to check on the chickens and there she was in the nesting box, panting up a storm.  I thought maybe she was just trying to push an egg out in this weather.  Hard work, I imagine.

An hour later, she's still in there.  So I reach in and under her to see what's up.  That's when I found four of the six eggs (one was on the floor, one was with Basement Chicken; aka Favorite; aka Effie; aka Grey Naked Neck).  From what I read on the message boards, I should immediately take her off the eggs and not let her back in the box. 

Fear set in for about a minute, as Buffy is the HBIC.  She's pecked at me before when I tried to mess with her when laying.  I slowly reached in and she let me pick her up.  Uh oh.  This doesn't seem right.

I tried to get her to drink some water, but to no avail.  She just wanted back in the coop, and specifically into the nesting box.  I wouldn't let her.  I shut it down.  I wanted to force her to be outside where it was a little cooler and where the colder water was.  Nope.  She wasn't having it.

Well, dumb chicken.  If she wants to kill herself due to dehydration, who am I to stop her.

Really?  You thought I would let that happen?  Maybe with one of the unnam..., um un-descriptive chickens.

After dinner (my dinner, not hers), I reopened the coop.  She went right back in like I knew she would.  But I had a plan.  I picked her up and brought her to the basement.  Now she can cool off and she and Effie can rebond.  Or fight to the death.  One or the other.

But seriously, my hope is the cool basement (it's like 72 down there) will allow here to stop panting, drink some water and get over her brooding tendencies.  I'll let her back out in the morning if she seems better. I don't want her gone too long.  She worked too hard to be Red's number one girl.

Why did the chickens cross the road?

They didn't...they got scared by traffic and ran back into the yard.  Luckily.

The experiment in letting the chickens free-range is going (mostly) well.   They are most active first thing in the morning - they have a few favorite spots under some trees where there are lots of ants and other bugs.  They scratch around and do their chicken thing.

By noon time, they are hot and tired.  The younger chickens rest under the cedar trees that line the east side of the run/coop area.  The older ones hang out in the run or the coop itself.  Then by late afternoon/early evening, everyone is ready for another bug run.

Here's where the experiment is failing me - or rather, the chickens are starting to make a nuisance of themselves in the neighborhood. 

There is a line of trees on the south side of the property.  lots of shade, most ground, dead leaves, etc for them to scratch around in.  They love it under there.  However, it is also right next to the street.  Granted, I lived on a dead end so the only traffic are the people that live up the street.  With the decreased traffic, the kids in the neighborhood tend to come off of Robert St pretty fast and start barrelling down the road.  If they are coming south, they can round the corner and plow into a chicken pretty easily.  Chickens are pretty dumb.

Yesterday (Sunday), this almost happened - except it wasn't a kid.  The car slowed down and the startled chickens ran back up into the yard.  After a few seconds, they didn't know what happened and went back to doing their chicken thing.  But it gave me one more thing to worry about. 

I hope I don't see dead chickens when I get home tonight (other than the ones in the freezer, of course).