Yes, that's right... 104 degrees Fahrenheit at 9:20 in the evening!
I came home to find this:
I truly expected to find dying birds, it was so hot today. 117 was the heat index.
Everyone had hunkered down.
Tonight, Keith and I took the little porcelains and milles out of their pen and put them into the little henhouse at dark.
We don't have the pen built around it yet, and there is little ventilation in this small coop. When the next one is built, there will be a window in the back with hardware cloth over it. When I got home this afternoon, the poor little birds were suffering in the heat terribly. We decided to move them into the larger little henhouse, so that they have more ventilation and room to move around. Yes, I'm worried about the big hens in there... but we shall see what happens tomorrow.
As you see, they are totally freaked out. The bigger birds are over to their left, they all roost on that side. I put the chick's familiar waterer in there with them, so that they know where to drink, but there is a big waterer in there, too. I also put their feed fortex in there, and will fill it in the morning. I hope the bigger birds don't push them around to much but I feel like the big birds will be outside, in the shade of the trees and under the henhouse for most of the day. Two hens stay inside, but one of those is one of my best mamas, Silka.
I promise that this is not going to be the All Chicken Blog it seems like it's becoming this week.
We'll get back to different stories tomorrow, I know a lot of you are also struggling dealing with this heat at your own places, too.
We are keeping the dogs (including the Intrepid Lil) in 98% of the time, as the pugs would literally die in this heat.
This guy prefers to be in, too:
He's curled around his dinner bowl here. He usually spills it and then laps it all up with his big tongue.
Everyone try to keep cool!
