Ameraucana Breeders Club
The Official Forum of the Ameraucana Breeders Club => Housing, Health & Hatching => Topic started by: Jess on June 02, 2011, 10:55:24 AM
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Morning,
Lately we have been having very hot and dry weather here.
It has been 100 plus, and today is forcast to be 101, with no end in sight.
My chickens walk around with their mouth open panting.
They are sheading feathers a lot.
I am keeping them all the water and feed they can eat and drink.
I have a lot of shade trees and bushes for the to get under.
Question, what else can I do to make them comfortable?
I am hopeing for a break, but the weather channel just gave the local forcast for the next 7 days and the coolest day was 99.
I don\'t know what we are going to do when it gets summertime, like in July and August
Thanks
Jess
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I have never lost an ameraucana to heat.
Some things I do in July and August up here is put ice cubes in the water or lay out frozen water bottles for the birds to lay on.
You can also make a mister system with pvc pipe and little nozzles purchased from Home Depot or Lowes. They are quite inexpensive.
Fresh water is the main thing they need.
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Thanks Jean,
I just feel sorry for them, they seem so uncomfortable.
I check on their water often and they sure are drinking a lot.
I let them run free range, so they can move around and find a shade to get under.
The only bad thing is that they like to get in Elaines flower beds, but thats OK with her.
Thanks
Jess
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My poultry barn has large doors on both ends with a walkway down the middle. Chickens in pens on both sides. In hot weather I use a box fan at high speed near the north door to keep the air moving.
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I second the fan, and anything you can do to increase shade for birds that are penned. I like camo leaf netting (mine is military surplus, but they probably sell it in sport shops, too, since people use it for deer/duck blinds) because it provides shade w/o restricting air flow. Paul Smith told me last year his birds do well up to about 105, over that he starts losing them, and I\'ve found that to be true here as well - I lost quite a few last year but not until it got up to 107, then they started dropping like flies. I finally got desperate and turned them all loose until fall. It\'s a calculated risk - lots of things can happen to a loose bird - but in the approx. 3 months they were loose I didn\'t lose a single bird, and I was losing 2-3 a week before that, so for me it was definitely the lesser of the 2 evils.
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The heat has hurt my ability to ship chicks the last two weeks. The temp has to be between 10 and 85 degrees to ship, but that has been exceeded and chicks are being raised in my brooders that were meant to go to customers.
There is just no way that I can fill many more of the orders for chicks that I have this year. Some customers have agreed to move thier orders to next year and I\'ve already received my first order for the 2012 hatching season.
Next year I\'ll go back to not hatching in June...just too hot.
The birds here are doing well with the heat wave. Fresh cold water, shade and exhaust fans do the trick. I\'m sure happy we live in mid Michigan where the climate is quite moderate.
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I was going to ship two boxes of started and young adult birds today, but the hour by hour forecast indicated it would still be too hot by the time the post office closed. It is supposed to be much cooler for about the next week, so I\'ll ship Monday. LaCrosse had triple digits yesterday, and today can\'t be far behind. Our thermometer reads upper 90\'s.
The chickens seem to be taking the heat pretty well here. The red deer just stand in the shade and pant. They would rather it be 10 below zero.
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Current conditions ºF | ºC
Newman Lake, WA
Current Weather
As reported 2:52 p.m.
UV index: 4 Moderate
Winds: CALM
Humidity: 44%
Pressure: 30.02 in
Dew point: 37ºF
Visibility: 10.00 miles
Sunrise: 4:50 AM
Sunset: 8:44 PM
Mostly Cloudy
59ºF
Feels like 59ºF
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Now that\'s just cruel! :p I think our overnight low is going to be in the mid 70\'s.
I have started birds for sale locally, but don\'t see shipping anything before the end of Sept.
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Jean, you are a sadist.
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??What?? :p
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I\'m hoping to ship our last hatch of 2011 next Wednesday, June 15. We have been in the mid to upper 90\'s for several days with no rain. I know the PO won\'t accept any older birds but the chicks may still be shipped. After all-they hatch at 99.5º! I had rather see it hot than cold. I\'m almost thawed out from last Feb. A few 100 + days and I think I\'ll be back to normal after the great freeze of 2011.
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??What?? :p
It is currently 55 degrees here this morning. I had to turn the brooder lights back on. The forecast is for a high of 72 today and a high of 62 tomorrow with rain. A-h-h-h.
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the chicks may still be shipped
Paul,
The 10 to 85 degree limit (except for fish) is the rule for Delta airlines and most of my chicks go on thier planes. I don\'t know of a temperature range that the post office mandates and that leaves a lot to the discretion of the clerks.
Hope you\'re having better results filling orders this year than I have.
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The heat has hurt my ability to ship chicks the last two weeks. The temp has to be between 10 and 85 degrees to ship, but that has been exceeded and chicks are being raised in my brooders that were meant to go to customers.
There is just no way that I can fill many more of the orders for chicks that I have this year. Some customers have agreed to move thier orders to next year and I\'ve already received my first order for the 2012 hatching season.
Next year I\'ll go back to not hatching in June...just too hot.
The birds here are doing well with the heat wave. Fresh cold water, shade and exhaust fans do the trick. I\'m sure happy we live in mid Michigan where the climate is quite moderate.
Sending you an email; we may be able to help each other. ;)
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It is currently 55 degrees here this morning. I had to turn the brooder lights back on. The forecast is for a high of 72 today and a high of 62 tomorrow with rain. A-h-h-h.
...and Mike gets a rasberry, too. Still mid to upper 90\'s, can\'t remember the last time it rained. If we don\'t get some soon I\'ll be buying hay by July. :o
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I checked with our regional PO on Thursday. They are still accepting chicks. We were so far behind on our orders that I turned several away about 6 weeks ago. Our last hatch only has three orders booked and we can accept a few more. Otherwise we are caught-up and soon can start again on 2012 chick orders.
We are very fortunate to be only 65 miles North of Dallas/Ft. Worth International Airport. We can send them anywhere in the US within 2 days delivery time.
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Hi Everyone:
I shipped my last two orders on tuesday. It was 97 here.
One went to Minnesota and one went to New York. The Minnesota one caught the cool down, but the new York one followed the heat. Both orders held 30 chicks and all arrived, the moring of the second day, with no losses. I had no choice but to ship, as I have no more room for chicks and would have had to destroy them if they didn\'t go. I guess I was lucky.
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Paul: For some reason I was thinking you were further south. How far are you from Weatherford? I spent a summer there (well, actually Peaster) for farrier school - you haven\'t lived \'til you\'ve run a coal forge in this heat! ;)
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evening folks,
as you can see we are still having this heat wave, weather channel says 2 more weeks of it.
Drilled a hole and it is 14 inches before you hit any mosture.
all my grass is dying. I don\'t think I have ever seen it this dry here.
Jess
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Ditto on the grass. We\'ve had a few days of relief from the heat, but ZERO rain. Even my weeds are dying, and I\'m buying hay in June. (FYI, not having to buy hay is absolutely the only thing I like about summer to begin with... :o )
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Ditto on the grass. We\'ve had a few days of relief from the heat, but ZERO rain. Even my weeds are dying, and I\'m buying hay in June. (FYI, not having to buy hay is absolutely the only thing I like about summer to begin with... :o )
I have hay for sale. But the shipping is a killer. First crop is harvested, second crop is growing . . . There are a few good things about Wisconsin. And I\'m not talking about the ticks and mosquitos.
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Mike: Actually most of the hay I buy is trucked in. It\'s hard to get good hay here, and demand greatly exceeds supply, so several farms in the area buy tractor trailer loads & sell their surplus. I keep saying I\'m going to do that, but the thought of unloading a 40ft trailer alone always stops me... ;)
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Hey we got Rain Tuesday and Wednesday and today.
Temp hasn\'t hit 90 for the last 3 days.
So I thank The Master Rain Maker for his blessings.
Jess
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Like the song says, rain is a good thing! It\'s rained several times here, too, and things are turning green again. Temps have been running low-mid 90\'s, not terrible for this time of year, but we have 3 wildfires that, while not close enough to directly threaten us, are producing a lot of smoke. We got a good rain last night, hope that helps with them. I feel so bad for the poor guys out there fighting them in this heat...
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rain is a good thing!
You are right, but hot/warm dry weather followed by a few days of cold rainy/damp weather can cause a lot of stress on the young birds. I was just telling Mike, yesterday, about some of my experiences with that situation over the years and the results weren\'t pretty. Keep them dry, not just by keeping them from getting rained on but out of mud and keep the bedding dry.
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A local breeder mentioned that too. He told me he raises all of his birds on wire but he has bantams - don\'t see how I could pull that off w/LF.
Speaking of losing birds to stress, has anyone else noticed that pullets handle stress better and/or are hardier? Whenever I lose young birds, I seem to lose about twice as many males as females. Just dumb luck? :)
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dumb
So, Beth, are you saying males are dumber than females? :D :D :D
(please don\'t answer that)
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. . has anyone else noticed that pullets handle stress better and/or are hardier? Whenever I lose young birds, I seem to lose about twice as many males as females. Just dumb luck? :)
Yes, stress no doubt. By any chance do you raise your pullets with your cockerels? I do understand how that might happen.
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Set myself up for that one, didn\'t I? ;)
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Sorry I’ve been so slow to respond. We are in
Gainesville, TX.-about 90 miles from Weatherford.
We did manage to ship the last five boxes without any losses even though it was in the upper 90’s.
All orders were filled and we still managed to keep 228 head (63 lavender splits) to continue breeding and showing some.
We’ve only had a sprinkle of rain. The corn crop was a 90% loss. Most of the other vegetables have done poorly. Hay is in short supply and high demand.
We are trying to keep about 50 hills of watermelons alive. They will be a big help to feed the chickens.
Last year the chickens soon learned to come running when they saw me carrying a watermelon. They would rather have it than the feed in their feeders.
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I\'m sorry that some are experiencing drought, locally the crop losses are due to flooding.
We aren\'t having the high temperatures here, today being only the 2nd one this month breaking into the 90s. However our high humidity is creating both stressful and dangerous conditions as temperatures approach 90 or above.
I feed crumbles converted to wet mash in this weather. Those birds with access to dry crumbles in feeders and wet mash in pans always eat the mash first. The waterers do not have to be refilled as often when they\'re fed wet mash, and growth rates are improoved over the birds not offered wet feed.
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Paul: So you guys are way up north. For some reason I was was thinking you were central.
Steve: What a great idea! I\'ve done that with horses for years but it never even crossed my mind to do it with the birds.
Hate that you guys are taking such a hit. Things have actually leveled out here, we\'ve gotten enough rain to perk things up, temps in the 90\'s but that\'s pretty normal - way cooler than last year. Only concern at the moment is the smoke from the wildfires. Mike spent the night stuck in the Charlotte airport last week because the plane got to Albert J. Ellis & couldn\'t land, had to fly back to Charlotte. Fortunately for him and the junior marines he adopted in the airport he\'d stocked up on snacks for the trip - pop-tarts anyone? ;)