For The Birds

Our heat wave is here and so I am spending a great deal of my day worrying about my chickens.   Chickens don't handle heat well at all and it can easily kill them.   Our coop doesn't have trees around it and it is a hot box by late afternoon.   I have a fan in the window but it's not helping much.  I bought watermelon and red grapes for them.   I am freezing little water bottles to put in their waterers and help keep their drinking water cooler.   For sleeping shelter,  I have to figure something out this morning  to give the hens more relief because our temps are going to range from 105 to 115 over the next week.   I trickle a hose during the day, under the redwood tree, so it provides a cooler spot for them to sit and pant.   They have plenty of places to crawl under a tree in the dirt for cooling.   But the air is barely breathable.   I can't bring 16 chickens into the house so that's not an option.   I have a shade cloth to put over the coop or surrounding area, but I'm really not sure that's going to make enough of a difference.   I have to get my sh*t together this morning and figure this out.   Sometimes a chicken mama just wants to fly away.....but can't.