Keeping Chickens Cool – Caring For Chickens During The Summer

Want to know the best ways for keeping your chickens cool and healthy all summer long? You aren’t the only one who wants to stay comfortable in the hot summer sun!

While many people worry about chickens getting too cold during the winter months (myself included), it’s really the summer months that you have to be more careful of. This is especially true for those of us who live in the Midwest and South, where temperatures can soar into the 90s and triple digits.

Here in Illinois, we often have extremely hot temperatures and high humidity in the summer months. It’s during this timeframe that you need to take a few extra steps to help keep your chickens cool and healthy.

Chickens have a core body temperature of around 105 to 107º Fahrenheit. Add to that their coat of thick feathers, and you have a heated ticking time bomb on your hands! Thankfully, you can easily keep your chickens cool even in the worst of the summer heat by following a few tips and tricks I’ve gathered over the years.

Chickens can fluff out their feathers and pant if they are overheated, but there’s only so much they can do to stay cool. That’s where you come into play. From adding some fans to extra water to deterring flies, these tips can literally save your chickens’ lives this summer!

5 Tips For Keeping Chickens Cool During The Summer

1: Choose Heat-Tolerant Chicken Breeds

Beieve it or not, there are some chicken breeds that do better during the warmer months than others. These are called “heat-tolerant” breeds. So, before you even go out to purchase your chicks, hopefully, you did a little bit of research on which birds can handle your location’s climate!

Some great examples of heat-tolerant birds are Australorps, Brahmas, Easter Eggers, Leghorns, New Hampshire Reds, Orpingtons, Plymouth Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, Silkies, Sussexes, and Welsummers. While you can still raise other breeds successfully in the summer, these birds will tolerate the heat the best, possibly without intervention from you.

For our location here in the Midwest, we needed to make sure the types of chickens we chose could withstand not only the high heat of summer but also the frigid winters we have here as well. So, for some of our breeds like the Wyandottes, we like to give them a bit of an extra hand to be able to withstand our Midwest summers.

2: Provide Shade – Keeping Chickens Cool

When you designed your chicken coop, you likely attached some type of an enclosed run for your birds. This is a place for the chickens to get exercise in a protected and safe space. (If you free-range your birds, this probably isn’t required. We technically live in city limits, so our birds have to be contained as much as possible and can’t free range.)

If at all possible, try to add a protective roof over the enclosed run. This roof will not only help to keep flying predators from scooping up your birds and give the chickens a place to hang out during storms, but it will also provide them with some type of shade. It’s amazing what a bit of shade can do to help lower the temperatures a bit.

If you can’t add some type of roof to your setup, just be sure to include some source of shade for your girls. Whether that is a nearby tree or a man-made structure with a cover on top. Without some source of shade, chances are your birds will bake in the hot summer sun.

3. Provide Plenty Of Fresh Water

Hens can go without food for a day or two, but they need constant access to fresh, cool water. During the hot summer days, I like to provide our girls with multiple sources of water.

They always have their 3-gallon insulated waterer available, but I also set out additional drink sources. You can use whatever containers you have lying around. For us, clean gallon-sized ice cream buckets work well. (Here is the newer version of the insulated water we use and love. Yes, it is a bit expensive, but it is also heated so I don’t have to worry about the water freezing over in the winter – Product Link: Premier 1 All-Season Heated Poultry Waterer)

With the extra containers of water, you will likely need to refill them once or twice a day, depending on how much your girls drink and how dirty they get the water. Open containers will need to be cleaned out more often than closed containers, so that is just something to keep in mind when making your choices.

Set the extra containers randomly around your covered run out of the hot summer sun, if possible. We usually have an extra one in their covered run as well as one in their fenced-in area. The more options for liquids, the better.

4: Add Extra Airflow – Keeping Chickens Cool

I often get made fun of for this tip from my non-chicken-keeping family and friends, but I like to place fans in our chicken coop and run. Yes, you read that right, fans. (At the very least, you need to add windows in their coop that open to allow for additional airflow while they sleep.)

I have one all-weather fan that I keep in their chicken coop to help keep the girls cool when they sleep at night. I also have one all-weather fan that sits outside their covered run to provide extra airflow during the day. (Here is the fan I have mounted in their coop and have used daily during the warmer months for several years now – Product Link: iLiving Wall Mounted Variable 14 Inches Speed Indoor/Outdoor Weatherproof Fan.)

While the fans won’t cool down the air temperature, they will allow for airflow that can help to cool off the girls. In addition, the fans will help to discourage flying pests like flies and gnats from hanging around as well. (See Tip 4 below on why that is important!) The fans are one of those double-purpose additions that might seem frivolous, but the girls seem to appreciate.

5: Keep Their Run (And Bums!) Clean

Speaking of flies, this last tip isn’t really about keeping them cool, but healthy and safe this summer. It’s not for the squeamish either, but it’s part of raising chickens that you should be aware of!

Summer and flies seem to go hand-in-hand, and that is especially the case when it comes to chickens. The main reason is because chickens poop. A lot! And where there is poop, there typically are flies galore!

Flies can cause something that’s referred to as “Flystrike”. It’s where adult flies lay eggs on the chicken’s skin, usually around their vent. The eggs then hatch, and the larvae (aka, maggots) feast on the nearby tissue. It is a very serious condition and is often fatal for your bird.

But don’t worry if that freaks you out, because it is something you can help control. The flies usually choose warm, dirty locations to lay their eggs since there is a built-in food source for the larvae. To help deter the egg laying, you need to do two main things:

How To Help

First, keep your chicken coop and run clean and free of as much poop as possible. If you have sand in your chicken yard, then it is as easy as using a scoop and a sifter and clearing out the area at least daily.

Second, keep your chickens’ vent area clean. Often, there can be a buildup of fecal matter around the vents of your chickens. If this occurs, you need to give your birds a quick cleaning.

Wash the area with warm water and a mild soap like Dawn. It can take a bit of scrubbing, but the mess will eventually clean up. Since the weather is warm, you can just allow the feathers to air dry. (Just watch for occasional picking from the other birds while they dry.) No poopy booty equals no flystrike for your girls!

Hopefully, by implementing some or all of these tips, your feathered friends will stay cool, happy, and healthy all summer long, no matter the temperature Mother Nature tries to throw at you!

Until next time, thanks for stopping by!
– Chelsea

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