Hot Chickens

The worst part of this weather is how it affects my chickens. They almost stop laying when it gets this hot, they start looking pretty ragged and they just look miserable.

My dash doesn’t look nearly this dusty in real life. Every time I take a picture, I think . . I’m going to go out with a Swiffer duster as soon as I get home . . and then I forget.

Coming home from Abilene yesterday, about 4:30 p.m., it was 104 so the heat index was probably 5 or 6 degrees warmer than that. My first concern was the chickens. All year I freeze the ends of vegetables or anything that gets older than we want to eat but isn’t yet moldy, and when it’s this hot, I take frozen squash, kale, blueberries, tomatoes – anything out of the freezer and give it to them to try to keep them cool. Several times a day, I dump the hot water in their watering cans and give them fresh, cold water. Since our water comes from a well, it’s pretty cool once I drain all the hotter, near the surface water from the lines.

I was wondering what I would find in the freezer and Vince reminded me I had yogurt in the strainer in the shop fridge. I had totally forgotten about it and it had been in there longer than I usually leave so I said . . heck, I’ll give the chickens the yogurt and make fresh.

It had been in the strainer draining for so long that it was like a hunk of yogurt cheese!

I give them the whey when it’s this hot and since it had been draining for so long, there was lot of whey!

Most of them preferred the yogurt over the whey but when I went outside a couple of hours later, the whey and the yogurt were gone.

I doubt the cold treats make a huge difference but I hope it helps a little.