I’m so excited! We went to the hardware store and in the garden center they had 17” plant coasters, which are bigger than my current foot baths (cupcake holder top and bottom). The plant coasters are made of a sturdier plastic too. I took them out to the chickens, but left the old foot baths because the chickens are usually wary of new things, and I didn’t want them to overheat for fear of a new foot bath. I didn’t need to worry, they stepped right in (but not for the video, figures).

Since I filled all four with water, rather than dump out the old foot baths (they will never hold cupcakes again anyway), I’ll observe which dishes get the dirtiest which should tell me which foot baths the chickens prefer. Another impromptu experiment!

I also figured out that the hose reaches into the coop, which makes rinsing out the foot baths much quicker and easier. Better late than never.

I did a little data collection. The high was forecast to be 100, and at 10:30am I was quite excited that the chicken’s runs were still in the 80s even though the nearest station was reading 95 degrees. Then 4pm happened. 102 degrees in the shade. Yuck.

I took ice out to the chickens twice and switched out the water in the foot baths four times. Although I had the styrofoam cooler filled with ice packs and the fan running, I feel like it is these foot baths that make the biggest difference for the chickens.

Another telling thing is that almost all of the chickens’ feet feathers are wet. So they are taking turns cooling their heels.

I had an apple with some bruised parts, so I used a peeler and took it down to the core, put the shavings in one of the plastic bins and added water. After it was frozen solid, I offered it to the chickens on a hot summer afternoon. This one went over much better than the veggie block! By the evening, the only bits left in the bin were the actual peels, and the water was even still cool!