If you can't take the heat... neither can your peeps!

As summer begins to settle in,  Our Little Coop is typically missing its man of the house.  As many of you know, I work for myself as an HVAC service provider.  For those of you that are new here, the name of my company is Thermo Green, Inc. HVAC. I usually find myself away from home on average of anywhere between 8-16 hours a day, leaving our free-range chickens and dogs to fend for themselves.

The few precautions I usually take to make sure everyone will be ok during the day always pay off.  The most critical of all, is to ensure everyone has access to plenty of fresh water and shade from the sun.  Every morning I rinse/ refill 3 drinking containers and a large dog bowl with a combo of water and Kent VITA-PAK.  The VITA-PAK can be found at most feed stores or online.  I do not worry about the dogs drinking the chicken water or visa versa because they all get this combination.  The Kent is nothing more than extra vitamins and electrolytes which are critical as the mercury climbs.

To provide shade,  we have 2 large silver maples on our property as well as many ornamental grasses that are alone our property line.  At least half of our yard at any given time is shaded.  Additional shade can be provided with the use of anything that would totally block out the sun, like a piece of plywood or even a bed sheet draped over a clothes line. STAY COOL! ~ Kevin

Update ***** How to make the waterer pictured:

Kevin has fallen behind but is going to post a more detailed version. Basically what you do is take a clean 5 gallon bucket and drill a few 1/4" holes around the top (opening) of the bucket about 2 inches down. Find a pan that has sides that are at least 3-4 inches high. Fill up the bucket, place the pan over the top, and carefully flip the whole thing upside down. The water will fill the pan up to the holes that you drilled, and will maintain a constant height there. Hope this helps!? Stay tuned for the more detailed version. :-)