Chickens - Hot Weather Protection

Today (Saturday) is a hot one - 30 C at 9am inside the house, at 11am it was 44 C (111F) in the shade outside. About 40% humidity.

One of my Light Sussex decided to lay in the sun and promptly got heat stressed. Picked her up, placed in the shade on wet soil and showered her in cool water.

Went inside to Google the safest way to lower her body temperature but by the time I returned about five minutes later she'd died. Not good weather to dig a hole in clay soil!

Frankly, compared to the Australorps, the other breeds are low grade morons - the Lorps are always in the shade, keeping it laid-back. The other Light Sussex was running around in the sun too! The Wyandotte's are quite happy to follow the Lorps, but they tend to be flighty buggers even in hot weather.

So, made some ice cubes and put them in their drinking water.

Had some old ice-pops in the freezer, threw them down and they actually ate them like regular feed - see photo.

Hard to keep human and beast cool in these temps.

So, no real lesson learnt other than the self-preservation level of some animals is non-existent.

Will need to hose down their yard so it's cooler tonight.

P.s. Birds won't normally drink warm water, it needs to be cool.

I live in California and put tarps up on parts of the coop to provide more shade.  On very hot days I don't let them out of the coop. I have a box fan that blows into the coop.  On days over 100 I will turn on misters.  The chickens aren't fond of the misters, but I haven't lost a chicken to the heat since.  My coop is 5 feet wide, by about 15 to 20 feet long( I haven't measured the length) and 10 feet high, so the misters cool the space, but the chickens don't really get wet.  I also put containers in the freezer to make large chunks of ice to put in the water, so it will last a while.  Good luck to you I had one of my chickens die from the heat once and I felt very bad about it.  Some times I think chickens are smarter than they get credit for, and other times I think maybe not.

F Agricola wrote:Today (Saturday) is a hot one - 30 C at 9am inside the house, at 11am it was 44 C (111F) in the shade outside. About 40% humidity.

Holy hellfire - where do you live?!!?? Your post is from Feb!! I live in West Central Florida and it gets bloody hot here too but you've got us beat. I have to chime in because keeping the chickens cool is a high priority here.
I ordered these cool flexible mister tube things from Amazon and while they don't sit under it like I hoped they would they do like the cool ground after I move it. I took the other one and pulled out the mister, twisted the flexible tube over the side of their waterer and I just leave it dribble all day long. Keeps it from getting algae build-up too. I have a well so the water is usually pretty cool.
I didn't realize that some chickens are just too stupid to come in out of the sun. I chose breeds that do well in the heat and so far it hasn't been an issue. They're all under the trees inside the run where it's dark and cool all day long. That's got to be heartbreaking, though. I'm very sorry you lost one of your girls.

My wife has been pushing for Australorps.  We had them in MN and they did great in the cold.  We currently have barred rock. The barred rock rate a zero at brooding.