Chickens Can't Tread Water

We have three water troughs for the animals on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  Animals require a lot of clean, fresh water - especially in the summer and especially if the cows are in milk.  Watching cows drink water at the trough is interesting.  They dip their mouth in the water and you can see their nostrils flare out.  Then they drink in large amounts and you can see their throats move as you see the level in the water trough going down.  To the best of my estimation, each cow drinks about 20 gallons a day, depending on the season and if they are lactating.

This water trough has a float valve.  When the water level goes down slightly, the float drops and the valve is opened, allowing fresh water to fill the trough until the float rises, shutting off the water.  The cows and goats primarily drink here.  We have a smaller trough for chickens, but some chickens do fly up, sit on the rim and drink water.

I have two similar water troughs that sit right under the drip lines on the north and south sides of the barn.  They are not attached to any water line, but are filled by rainwater running off the barn.  A two inch rain can easily fill them both up.  Since installing these troughs, they have become the favorite watering hole of choice to the cows.  As they leave the barn, they conveniently walk up to the troughs and slowly drink their fill.

There is one downside to these troughs.  They can be a death-trap for chickens.  We have to be on our toes and check the water troughs each time we go out to the barn.  Sometimes, however, we find a scene like you see below.

That's a barred rock hen floating in the trough - very dead.  It's easy to re-create events leading to her demise.  She was thirsty and didn't want to walk to the trough in front that has water filled to the top.  She flew up to the rim of the water trough and sat on the edge.  She noticed that the water level was low, but figured, "I'll just crane my neck down a bit and drink."

While reaching down to drink, she lost her balance and fell into the water, soaking her wings.  She struggled to try to fly out of the water, to no avail.  Chickens can't tread water, but she didn't die of drowning.  She died of hypothermia.  After sitting in the water, her body temperature began to fall.  She became confused and disoriented and began to shiver.  When no help arrived, she died.  We've been able to save them from time to time by taking them out of the water and putting them in a bucket with a heat lamp.  The lamp dries out their feathers and warms them up.  After just a few minutes the chicken is good to go.

Sadly, in this case, we weren't able to save her.  I brought her to the garden and buried her.  I re-doubled my efforts in checking the two water troughs for wayward hens.  I don't like losing animals.  So far, so good. 

Bringing Back Sally From the Abyss

After rains we catch three or four hundred gallons of rainwater.  I turn the water off that feeds the cows' water troughs and fill their trough with the rainwater until we've exhausted the supply of rainwater.  There is a risk to doing this, though.  By the time I get home in the afternoon, the cows have been drinking a lot of water and have reduced the water level in the trough by about a third. This is not a problem for the cows as they can crane their necks down inside the trough and drink to their hearts' content.

The problem is the chickens.  Normally, they hop up on the edge of the cattle trough and dip their beaks down in the water to drink.  Except when the water level is only 2/3's full, sometimes chickens fall into the water and can't get out.  Most of the time, the dogs will hear the chickens thrashing about and will bark and alert us. Sometimes though, they don't.  One evening I came in and found Sally, the hen, floating in the trough.

I picked her up and sat her down on the ground.  She fell over on her side very, very weak.  She stunk, too.  Wet chickens stink! Even though it was warm outside at around 80 degrees, the hen was cold to the touch and she was shaking. Hypothermia.  She had been in the trough long enough to where she was unable to maintain her body temperature.  We've learned that unless action is taken, the hen will die.

Here's what we do:  We dry her off with a towel and bring her into the garage and put her in a big molasses tub.  This keeps wind from chilling her wet feathers. Then we put a heat lamp over her.  Not too close, but not too far away, either.  At first she couldn't even stand on her legs.  Over the course of about 20 minutes, she was up on her feet!

About 10 minutes later, I heard her clucking and standing erect.

Ten minutes later she had knocked the heat lamp to the side and was perched on the side of the molasses tub, presumably to roost there for the night.  That signaled me that we were successful in bringing Sally back from the brink of death.  She is out on the pasture now eating worms.  Had we not taken immediate action she would be about a foot deep in the garden feeding worms.

Another Chicken in The Intensive Care Unit

Friday afternoon I came back from work a little late and Tricia had already milked the cows.  Russ was in from college and helped her get the job done.  Ever since the record-setting rainfall we slogged through back in August, it has been drier than the Sahara around here.  Not only has it been dry, but it has been abnormally hotter than in previous years.  As a result, the animals drink the troughs down very quickly.

On the big cattle trough, this is no problem since there is a valve that automatically refills the trough as soon as the cows drink it down. Not so on the smaller water troughs that we have out by the barn. Each day we fill them again, but what happens from time to time is that the chickens will jump up on the rim to drink water and will dip their heads down to get water and they lose their footing and fall into the water.  Inevitably, they do this when no one is around and the chicken will stay in the water all day.  Even in the heat of summer, a hen floating in the water all day affects its ability to maintain its body temperature.  They get hypothermia and if not treated, they'll die.

Russ found a chicken floating in the trough on Saturday and it was mostly dead when he founder her. Russ and Tricia set up an Intensive Care Unit by clipping a heat lamp to the side of an empty bucket to slowly warm up the bird.  When I arrived home, I thought the old girl was dead.  It was laying on its side, wet and lifeless with its eyes closed.  After ten minutes or so, the bird was looking slightly better, but still in critical condition.  We left to go to a high school football game and left the heat lamp on.  When we returned home, I fully expected to see a dead bird in the bucket, but this is what she looked like:

Not better but making strides i the right direction.  Before we went to bed, we turned the heat lamp off as it would be disastrous for a lively bird to knock a heat lamp over and catch the house on fire. When we awakened Saturday morning,  the bird was up, chipper, and alert.  I think she was ready for discharge from the hospital.

I 'wheeled' her to the pasture gate and so as to not rush things, I set the bucket on its side so the recovering hen could exit at its convenience.

After surveying its surroundings and probably being very grateful that Russ snatched her from sure death in a watery grave,  the hen walked out of the bucket and joined her friends scratching around in the pasture.

Things could have turned out a whole lot worse for the hen.  I hope she'll be a whole lot more careful from now when she gets thirsty and wants to wet her whistle.

Can a Chicken Get Hypothermia?

Saturday morning before milking, I went about the normal chores, feeding all the other animals, switching the cows from one paddock to a fresh one.  Then I went about checking water troughs, ensuring that they were all filled with water.  We have one main 150 gallon water trough and have two 'makeshift' 30 gallon water troughs made with old molasses/mineral tubs.

As I walk by one, I noticed that it was about 3/4 full, but then stopped suddenly. There was a chicken floating in it!  At first I thought she was dead, but once I removed her from the water, I could tell that she was still barely alive, although her eyes weren't opened.  She was shaking and barely able to stand.  I sat her in the sunshine while we milked the cows, hoping to warm her up.  Chickens aren't too smart.  They fly up ungracefully to the edge of the water trough to get a drink, lean over to drink and some inevitably fall in and die if you don't get to them quickly enough.

I'm no veterinarian, but I would assume that the barred rock hen was suffering from hypothermia. Hypothermia is the condition of having an abnormally low body temperature, typically one that is dangerously low.  This can happen even in warm weather.  Trouble is, about twenty minutes later, once we finished milking, she was not any better.  I knew we must get her some medical attention to save her life.  Fortunately, the doctor was in.  I put the pitiful creature into an empty molasses tub and brought her into the garage.

"Give me your huddled masses..."

I positioned a heat lamp approximately 18 inches above the hen.  I didn't want it to be too close to her as it would burn her and warm her up too fast.  I didn't want it to be too far away though or it wouldn't warm her up.  Up to this point, I wasn't sure if Sally HennyPenny was going to make it.  I had another project going in the garage as we were painting the walls, so I kept a close eye on her.  In about 10 minutes, I checked in and the old gal was looking a little more perky than before.  Still a little wet, but I knew she'd make it.

Heatin' up some chicken

In ten more minutes, she wasn't hunched over shivering anymore and her eyes were wide open.

In about ten more minutes, I heard a big commotion and the hen flew up out of the tub with the heat lamp and was scurrying around the garage.  I caught the old girl and walked her back outside toward the pasture fence.  I set her down on the bridge to make sure she was good to go and yes, she was.

Her buddies were in the muddy waiting room across the fence waiting for her and they were happy she had recovered from her close call.

Birds of a feather flock together

Hopefully, old gal will have learned a lesson and won't fall in the water trough again. We've just had 21 inches of rain in a week's time.  There's plenty of water still on the ground.  She doesn't need to even go to the water trough to drink.  I can't figure out her thinking there, but... she's a chicken. Fortunately the lifeguard got to her in time and performed emergency medical services promptly so that she'll live to see another day and lay more eggs.