We are in the midst of a week of triple digit heat with temperature at night in the high seventies. I pretty much explained what can be done to help chickens beat this heat here, and I have been doing all of it – except the fan – until today, and here is why:

Little background on philosophy: I got 2 straight run chickens last year: 1 – heat tolerant foraging egg layers – light Mediterranean  and 2 – a Mediterranean dual purpose breed that puts real good weight on (because someone was gonna take the roosters and had good experience with them).

So we have this heat wave and I have a sitting hen – one of the Buff Catalana dual purpose birds –  who is sitting on 13 eggs due in 4 days, at the end of this heatwave – and this morning she is sitting there PANTING at 830 AM. This is a new thing – she is in the shade, has cold water, is in a misted area. My large water bottles are not yet frozen to be placed close to her – but I feel bad for her: she really is too heavy for this weather, even with a large comb and wattle for a chicken hen, and she is sitting, and it is not like she choose to live in this habitat – I made her – and so I feel bad for her and  get her a fan from my room,  which “coincidentally” was returned that some morning because the person using it got a working air conditioner the day before,  even though my philosophy, in the vein of keep the flock healthy and resilient in a natural setting, has been: if they cannot tolerate the heat with plenty of shade, rest and fresh cool water, then they are not the kind of heat tolerant chickens I meant and nature shall prevail.

While I have no plans to get more of this breed, but she is here now, trying to hatch chicks and she is in distress in a kind of heat I never expected  – and that is why I am giving her a fan – and because I can.