Okay, so I’m a worrywart. In my defense, fearing the worst is better than being indifferent, at least when it comes to the safety and well-being of our hens.
My latest bout of nerves occurred a few days ago when the temperature shot up to 92 degrees here in central Maine. Now, 92 degrees may not be wicked hot where you live, but it’s hellish hereabouts, in the northern climes. I suppose our reaction to this sort of thing is relative. It all depends on what you’re accustomed to dealing with.
Anyway, I know from my research that keeping chickens cool in the summer is at least as big a concern as keeping them warm in the winter. They do have feathers, after all, which is good news in the cold weather but problematic in the heat.
Like the rest of us, chickens can get overheated, but unlike you and me, they cannot sweat. They pant to cool off, and sometimes lift their wings from their bodies when they’re really warm. Of course, if the temperature soars too high, they have trouble coping. Fortunately, thanks to ample shade and water, Snow, Stella and Nala did not appear to be excessively warm on the day in question.
Yet I worried. Being an obsessive poultry papa, I wondered if the hens would get overheated in their coop that night, even if the mercury dropped. The coop has windows fore and aft, so there’s some ventilation, but I visualized three hens churning out enough body heat in a small space to negate whatever benefit they might get from a gentle nighttime breeze.
My latest bout of nerves occurred a few days ago when the temperature shot up to 92 degrees here in central Maine. Now, 92 degrees may not be wicked hot where you live, but it’s hellish hereabouts, in the northern climes. I suppose our reaction to this sort of thing is relative. It all depends on what you’re accustomed to dealing with.
Anyway, I know from my research that keeping chickens cool in the summer is at least as big a concern as keeping them warm in the winter. They do have feathers, after all, which is good news in the cold weather but problematic in the heat.
Like the rest of us, chickens can get overheated, but unlike you and me, they cannot sweat. They pant to cool off, and sometimes lift their wings from their bodies when they’re really warm. Of course, if the temperature soars too high, they have trouble coping. Fortunately, thanks to ample shade and water, Snow, Stella and Nala did not appear to be excessively warm on the day in question.
Yet I worried. Being an obsessive poultry papa, I wondered if the hens would get overheated in their coop that night, even if the mercury dropped. The coop has windows fore and aft, so there’s some ventilation, but I visualized three hens churning out enough body heat in a small space to negate whatever benefit they might get from a gentle nighttime breeze.
So I dithered. Should I drive my wife Liz to work to retrieve a small fan from her office? Is a daytime high of 92 hot enough to worry about nighttime consequences in the coop? Was I overreacting as a nervous New Englander more accustomed to cold than heat?
As we so often do in life, I chose to do nothing, beyond assuring, as I do every night, that both windows in the coop remained open and that there was a bowl of water on the floor of the coop.
I was still a bit nervous when I finally went to bed that night, but when I headed out to the coop the following morning (70 degrees and cloudy) the girls were their usual selves, bouncing around in the coop in their eagerness to get out and racing to their food bowl once I released them into their pen.
I’m not sure just yet what the moral of the story is, but here’s one possibility. Chickens may make for tender eating, but when it comes to withstanding the elements, they’re tough birds.
As we so often do in life, I chose to do nothing, beyond assuring, as I do every night, that both windows in the coop remained open and that there was a bowl of water on the floor of the coop.
I was still a bit nervous when I finally went to bed that night, but when I headed out to the coop the following morning (70 degrees and cloudy) the girls were their usual selves, bouncing around in the coop in their eagerness to get out and racing to their food bowl once I released them into their pen.
I’m not sure just yet what the moral of the story is, but here’s one possibility. Chickens may make for tender eating, but when it comes to withstanding the elements, they’re tough birds.
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