10 Tips to Help Your Birds Combat Heat Stress

Summer is here and it is becoming tough on your birds, esp on broilers and layers. Producing enough meat and eggs in the midst of this excessive heat sometimes is a big toll on our beloved birds! The following are my suggestions to combat the harmful effects of too much heat:

1. If possible, reformulate their diet to lower energy and increase vitamin/mineral contents. Usual energy sources inside feeds are corn, oil and wheat.
2. Night feeding. The idea behind this suggestion is changing the time when your birds will digest the feeds inside their bodies which usually result in heat dissipation. If they feed a lot in the morning, then the feeds get digested at noon time and they need to remove the resultant heat off their bodies by early afternoon time when the environment is not helping. You will see them panting too much, wings drooped, and trying to drink water a lot. Some birds which can't stand this, will just roll-over and die. Hence I suggest that you feed your birds (at least the majority of daily ration) in the night so that digestion will happen before dawn!
3. Ensure passage of air all throughout pens by removing air blocks like cobwebs, garbage, excessive tree branches, etc.
4. Constantly place fresh cool water! This is a must 24/7. Also, you have to feel this water because sometimes, the water tubes are overground and directly being warmed by the sun. Just like us, birds do not want to drink hot water. If the birds drink less water, effects will be felt in egg production, feed consumption, weight gain, and possible health conditions.
5. Addition of fans or other devices to increase air circulation and diffuse building of heat inside pens.
6. At this period, it is common that your birds' poo will become soft which in turn will increase ammonia levels in the pen and further aggravate the situation. If this happen, determine the cause of the diarrhea and address accordingly.
7. Place additional shades. This is important for free range chickens for they do need to hide from direct sunlight.
8. During excessive heat, you can assist your birds by placing anti-stress vitamins and electrolytes in their water for three days weekly.
9. For egg layers, excessive panting results in a shell component being released in the air causing incomplete egg shelling. You will see your breakages increasing and sometimes shell-less eggs coming out more often. Some farmers add calcium bicarbonates in water while some increase vitamin D inclusion, either in water or feeds. Feeding more greens for free range might be of help for this regard. In a pen, constant free supply of oyster shell grits is also advisable.
10. Ensure proper spacing - avoid overcrowding and wider water and feeding space allocation per bird.

These are just suggestions and I am sure you can find a couple more when you look closer at your birds' condition. Like what I always say, try to have an eye in looking at birds' survival instincts because just like us, they will try to survive based on what is given them.

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