Introduction to Heat Stress Management

boy hey there folks this is Josh Stony Ridge farmer welcome back to another gorgeous day hot day here on the Stony Ridge Farm and today we're going to talk about heat and stress and what we have to do extra here on the ston Ridge Farm in order to help our animals recover and do good in hot weather so folks these are our layers and our meat birds for the year they're the American breast or American Bree chicken these guys are pretty heat tolerant when you get your chickens you need to think about where you are where you're located okay so if you're up north where it gets to subzero temperatures you may want to consider a bird that's more hearty for cold temperatures chickens are tropical animals so heat really doesn't bother them so much as long as they have access to good water and good shade we got about 70 chickens here and all 70 of these chickens are drinking water like crazy all summer long so I'm giving them about 10 gallons of water per day we keep the feeders full the waterers full and we keep the waterers out of the shade so they have to leave the shade to go to the water and why do we do that it's so they don't just lay under there and drink up all the water all day long we don't need them to do that we need them to have access to shade to where they can get cooled off lay down on a nice cool ground which stays about 55 to 60 degrees and have access to good food and good water now let's take Buddy on his special treat he gets a special treat every day and Buddy is my dog we've got five cats that are outside cats buddy is an outside dog this is a farm dog and I don't know how many of you guys have ever driven up to a farm but what happens when you drive up to a farm you're always greeted by either barking dogs or wagging Tails these dogs aren't inside dogs this is a farm dog he protects the area he protects these chickens he protects the garden from deer he protects the chickens from foxes and coyotes he protects the cows also and what he does is he deserves to get a nice cool dip every day so let's take Buddy out for his morning dip another