- The first method is through dust bathing. A good, clean, preferably sandy area will provide them with what they need in terms of a dust bathing area.
- Secondly they lose heat through their combs, wattles, and legs so providing them with water to walk through will help encourage evaporative heat loss. You can provide your chickens with a small kiddy pool to wade through, shallow large pans or bowls to wade through, or (for those really stubborn chickens that won’t get wet) you can wet areas down where they must walk so that they can not avoid it.
- Finally, chickens lose heat through their droppings. As a result they will consume more water to replace that lost through droppings which will result in looser than normal droppings. This is normal and is not a sign of distress.
Because we live in Texas our coop was designed with summer heat in mind. Half of the coop is enclosed only with hardware cloth which allows excellent air circulation. The floor of our coop is made entirely of sand which does not hold heat well and can double as a dust bathing area. We have open front nesting boxes with very light straw bedding. The coop is entirely in the shade and has no insulation. As a result of these particular features our coop tends to run cooler than the ambient temperature outside the shaded area. Our nipple waterer provides a constant fresh source of water to both help cool the chicken internally and replenish lost water. Electrolyte supplements can also be added to the water to help give the chickens a boost.