I have backyard chickens for a while now. They still entertain me and give me surprises every now and then. The bond between the hens and me is much stronger than before. I feel them as precious pets rather than just egg supplying animals. I’m enjoying the time with them. By feeling the slow passing nature deeply, I appreciate each season and feel much closer to the land. That’s what I really love doing and what I really want to continue feeling.
This summer is cooler than usual, but the occasional heat still hits us. When the temperature is high, hens don’t eat much. They don’t drink the water that’s warmed up by the harsh sun either. As a result, they don’t lay eggs on the next day, or if they do, the egg is either very small or poorly shelled (soft shell). I use a sheet of tarpaulin to resolve this problem. My tarpaulin is silver on one side and dark green on the other side. The color, silver reflects sunlight while the dark green provides nice darkness on the other side. I cover the coop with the tarp, silver side out. That protect the coop from heating up too much and provides cool shade inside. If you have used a silver sheet for a car front screen, you’d know how much difference it makes. I always use those silver sheet when I park my car under the sun. If I forget to use it, the car heats up too much. In Queensland summer, I can barely touch the steering wheel in such car, not to mention I damaged a few CDs and Sunglasses in the compartment. Anyway, reflecting the light and heat by silver sheet works well for my hens. If the reflection gets shaded area of the garden, it’s even better. Everyone has those odd places in the garden where not much sun gets. By placing the silver tarp in the angle that the reflection gets shady spots, you can provide extra sun in the shady garden. The same technique applies to laundry on the line to make them dry faster. Solar oven is an ultimate way to use this technique but I’ll leave the topic for some other time.
On the very hot day, I add ice cubes in the hens water. The ice cubes won’t last for a long, but my hens tend to drink more while the water is cold. The cubes eventually melt and turn to water before evaporates. This is one way to keep the water in the water bowl all the time instead of checking it every few hours for evaporated empty water bowl. Drinking water helps hens to cool down their body temperature.
My hens have their own way to cool them down too. They scratch the ground and make a dent, big enough for them to sit inside. The soil in the dent give them a nice cool carpet. (as well as earth worms) They prefer the soil dent to the sand bath for some reason.
This morning, I was surprised by a mega sized egg. Here is the picture of it comparing to normal sized egg. Big egg like this often have more than one yolk in it. I’m looking forward to finding it out. The hen that laid this huge egg looked very exhausted. She looked hot too. She went to the soil dent and spend hours in there. The dent must have some sort of calming effect like a spa. What a smart chick to stay there!!
It’s a hot day today, I better make sure the silver tarp is covering the coop properly and add some ice cubes in the water bowl so that my hens can have a comfortable summer day.
Enjoy your day!!
... I appreciate your support.
