- Cuckoo Stud
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Orpingtons '101'
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- New Colours, acceptance of the colours
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- Gold Barred Buff Orpington
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- Contact us
- Acquiring and caring for your Orpingtons
- Feeding - what we feed our birds
- Heat waves, hot days, Summer and Liquefaction
- Artificial UV lighting
- Chook Saddles
- Fertility and my secret recipe
- Posted chickens - how to make them
- Embryonic developmental stages of a chick
- Mareks Disease
- Hatching larger std size birds
- Size = breeding down
- Brooder - recycled and effective
- Growth patterns and assessing birds
- Microchipping your birds
- Secure housing
- Lime - Hydrated and Garden (AG) Lime and their uses in the chook pen
- MOUSE/RAT TRAP chook friendly
- Appraisal pictures of your birds
- Showing - training your birds
- Coccidia Oocyst cycle and treating Coccidiosis with Baycox
- Lymphoid Leukosis – Avian (The Wasting Disease)
- Coryza Avibacterium Paragallinarum
- Crop problems in poultry
- Mosquito control
- Maremma - training a pup
- Fox Traps
- Snake Bite
Heat waves, hot days, Summer and Liquefaction
By the Cuckoo Stud
A heat wave is 3 or more days of over 35 degrees Celcius, but one random hot day can also do immeasurable damage to a flock.
Any ambient temperature over 30degrees Celcius will stress and potentially kill birds.
Ambient temperatures of 35+ can kill birds, often quickly.
Days of 40+ have to be considered fatal to birds that cannot be kept cool enough.
Birds core temperatures rise quickly and can stay high for a day or more after just one random hot day, even if the bird showed little or no signs of heat stress on that one random day. So even on random hot days birds must be kept cool.
If a birds core temperature stays high in a heat wave of 3 or more days of 35degrees Celcius or above daytime temperatures and night temperatures of 15 degrees or more = by day 4 the bird has started to cook internally as the fat has fully liquefied and it will die slowly from organ failure (organs cooking) = this cooking process can take up to a week.
If Mother Nature is merciful to this bird it will die quickly within hours of liquefaction starting when no help to cool is available.
This liquefaction and internal cooking is well documented in Australian flocks during and after heat waves.
Common signs of heat stress =
Wings held out, tail drooping and bird panting
^ at this point the bird has already started to overheat and any fat deposits have started to melt
Bird so lethargic it cannot stand often lying with one wing and leg held out at an angle to the body < this in an attempt to cool itself, the bird will also be panting or so weakened by heat that it can barely breath
Many correctly attempt to keep their birds cool on hot days by providing iceblocks in the birds water and/or large iceblocks with pieces of frozen fruit and/or vegetables in the ice; some also use sprinklers to cool the air of the pens and to give ground water for the birds to stand or lie in.
Sadly though some will still lose birds as once a birds internal temperature reaches a certain point it stops eating and drinking, so the only hope the birds have is to be kept cool by other means. = sprinklers to cool the air around them and so they can stand or lie in the water, and/or by the owner dunking them in cold water to help cool them. Often this works, but randomly it does not.
The main reason it does not work is because the birds are overweight = carrying fat most often dangerous amounts of fat.
When fat is heated it starts to melt, melting fat becomes a liquid that quickly heats to a level that cooks whatever it is in contact with.
So it stands to reason that birds carrying excessive amounts of internal fat will overheat quickly and actually start to cook from the inside out.
This process is referred to as ‘liquefaction’.
Birds need to have this fat reduced to absolute minimal levels WELL BEFORE the heat arrives.
We as humans know not to over eat, chickens do not understand this and want to eat constantly = conning us silly humans into over feeding them thinking we are doing the right thing. But we are not!
To reduce the fat levels in birds they need to be fed portion controlled amounts from early to mid Spring through all of Summer.
That is not to say what your birds have been getting is actual portion control as it is safe to say it is not.
Look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself “am I doing the right thing by my birds by feeding them so much? Will they survive the Summer heat by eating so much?” and if you answer yourself “yes they are fine” =
you are lying to yourself and potentially doing serious harm to your birds!
The honest answer should be “I need to feed them a lot less so they are nicely slimmed down in plenty of time for the heat”
1cup of food (grains or pellets) a day is the average portion for a large breed, so from early to mid Spring they should receive no more than half a cup a day to get the fat off them. The birds will absorb the fat they are carrying and use it as a food source during this time = reducing the risk of liquefaction in heat waves. If needs be feed them quarter of a cup a day to get the fat deposits gone. The birds will not starve; they will slim down and cope much better in conjunction with hot day measures of ice and sprinklers etc in heat waves and on random hot days.
Smaller breeds obviously should be fed less than a large breed. And yes smaller breeds can also be carrying too much fat leading into Summer.
The amount of work needed to ensure each bird only eats a half or quarter portion will be worth it once your flock has survived Summer.
Of course this does not guarantee you will not lose a bird or two but it has been proven over many years to help.
* At the Stud all birds are slimmed down from early to mid Spring, and fed portion control until the end of Summer (end of the heat)
Also, the birds have both regular pens of treed large yards and paddocks to roam in during the day with their Maremma dogs, and Summer pens up off the ground in the yards and paddocks.
The Summer pens are under trees, have wire floors (2cm square mesh) and wire bird mesh on all sides to allow breezes through.
Each Summer pen has a soaker hose attached to the sides all the way around so that water can be sprayed as a fine mist directly onto the birds during heat waves and on random overly hot days.
Since implementing this method of cooling it has been rare that birds have been lost.
This method of heat wave and random overly hot day housing was implemented after the 2009 firestorms and associated heatwave that decimated the state.
* Subject to copyright laws of Australia
By the Cuckoo Stud
A heat wave is 3 or more days of over 35 degrees Celcius, but one random hot day can also do immeasurable damage to a flock.
Any ambient temperature over 30degrees Celcius will stress and potentially kill birds.
Ambient temperatures of 35+ can kill birds, often quickly.
Days of 40+ have to be considered fatal to birds that cannot be kept cool enough.
Birds core temperatures rise quickly and can stay high for a day or more after just one random hot day, even if the bird showed little or no signs of heat stress on that one random day. So even on random hot days birds must be kept cool.
If a birds core temperature stays high in a heat wave of 3 or more days of 35degrees Celcius or above daytime temperatures and night temperatures of 15 degrees or more = by day 4 the bird has started to cook internally as the fat has fully liquefied and it will die slowly from organ failure (organs cooking) = this cooking process can take up to a week.
If Mother Nature is merciful to this bird it will die quickly within hours of liquefaction starting when no help to cool is available.
This liquefaction and internal cooking is well documented in Australian flocks during and after heat waves.
Common signs of heat stress =
Wings held out, tail drooping and bird panting
^ at this point the bird has already started to overheat and any fat deposits have started to melt
Bird so lethargic it cannot stand often lying with one wing and leg held out at an angle to the body < this in an attempt to cool itself, the bird will also be panting or so weakened by heat that it can barely breath
Many correctly attempt to keep their birds cool on hot days by providing iceblocks in the birds water and/or large iceblocks with pieces of frozen fruit and/or vegetables in the ice; some also use sprinklers to cool the air of the pens and to give ground water for the birds to stand or lie in.
Sadly though some will still lose birds as once a birds internal temperature reaches a certain point it stops eating and drinking, so the only hope the birds have is to be kept cool by other means. = sprinklers to cool the air around them and so they can stand or lie in the water, and/or by the owner dunking them in cold water to help cool them. Often this works, but randomly it does not.
The main reason it does not work is because the birds are overweight = carrying fat most often dangerous amounts of fat.
When fat is heated it starts to melt, melting fat becomes a liquid that quickly heats to a level that cooks whatever it is in contact with.
So it stands to reason that birds carrying excessive amounts of internal fat will overheat quickly and actually start to cook from the inside out.
This process is referred to as ‘liquefaction’.
Birds need to have this fat reduced to absolute minimal levels WELL BEFORE the heat arrives.
We as humans know not to over eat, chickens do not understand this and want to eat constantly = conning us silly humans into over feeding them thinking we are doing the right thing. But we are not!
To reduce the fat levels in birds they need to be fed portion controlled amounts from early to mid Spring through all of Summer.
That is not to say what your birds have been getting is actual portion control as it is safe to say it is not.
Look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself “am I doing the right thing by my birds by feeding them so much? Will they survive the Summer heat by eating so much?” and if you answer yourself “yes they are fine” =
you are lying to yourself and potentially doing serious harm to your birds!
The honest answer should be “I need to feed them a lot less so they are nicely slimmed down in plenty of time for the heat”
1cup of food (grains or pellets) a day is the average portion for a large breed, so from early to mid Spring they should receive no more than half a cup a day to get the fat off them. The birds will absorb the fat they are carrying and use it as a food source during this time = reducing the risk of liquefaction in heat waves. If needs be feed them quarter of a cup a day to get the fat deposits gone. The birds will not starve; they will slim down and cope much better in conjunction with hot day measures of ice and sprinklers etc in heat waves and on random hot days.
Smaller breeds obviously should be fed less than a large breed. And yes smaller breeds can also be carrying too much fat leading into Summer.
The amount of work needed to ensure each bird only eats a half or quarter portion will be worth it once your flock has survived Summer.
Of course this does not guarantee you will not lose a bird or two but it has been proven over many years to help.
* At the Stud all birds are slimmed down from early to mid Spring, and fed portion control until the end of Summer (end of the heat)
Also, the birds have both regular pens of treed large yards and paddocks to roam in during the day with their Maremma dogs, and Summer pens up off the ground in the yards and paddocks.
The Summer pens are under trees, have wire floors (2cm square mesh) and wire bird mesh on all sides to allow breezes through.
Each Summer pen has a soaker hose attached to the sides all the way around so that water can be sprayed as a fine mist directly onto the birds during heat waves and on random overly hot days.
Since implementing this method of cooling it has been rare that birds have been lost.
This method of heat wave and random overly hot day housing was implemented after the 2009 firestorms and associated heatwave that decimated the state.
* Subject to copyright laws of Australia