Poultry Keepers Podcast

Beat the Heat: Proven Ways to Prevent Heat Stress in Your Birds-Part 2

• Rip Stalvey • Season 3 • Episode 126

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In Part 2 of this Poultry Keepers Podcast, Jeff Mattocks and Carey Blackmon return to tackle more proven, real-world strategies for preventing heat stress in your birds. From ventilation hacks and nutrition adjustments to water system improvements and coop cooling tricks, this episode is packed with practical insights every poultry keeper can use.

We dive into:

  • Airflow and coop design for better temperature regulation
  • Why chickens prefer apple cider vinegar in summer water
  •  Frozen treats: fun or flawed? What it does to your eggs
  •  High-protein treats—helpful or harmful in summer?
  •  Smart watering systems: misting, recirculating lines, and temperature targets
  •  Cleaning tips for nipple lines and drinkers
  •  Emergency cooling strategies (frozen blocks, standing water, fans)
  • Water pH, alkalinity, and why it matters more than you think
  •  Winter water heating tips (yes, summer prep helps with winter, too!)

Whether you raise birds for show, production, or pets, this is a must-watch episode that brings clarity to common summer challenges. Learn how to listen to your birds, balance their diet, and keep them cool, hydrated, and healthy through the hottest months.

Learn more at: www.thepoultrykeeperspodcast.com

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Alex:

Hey, and welcome back to The Poultry Keepers Podcast, where we help good folks like you raise better birds and build better flocks—one practical episode at a time. Today we’re diving into Part Two of our summer survival series: Beat the Heat Proven Ways to Prevent Heat Stress in Your Birds. Now, if you caught Part One, you already know we’re not just talking about the weather—we’re talking about protecting your birds when the mercury starts climbing and the breeze stops blowin’. In this episode, we’re picking up where we left off with Jeff Mattocks and Carey Blackmon—two men who know their way around both feed buckets and hot barns. We’ll be talking about how to manage airflow inside the coop, what happens when your birds eat too many summer treats, and how little things like water temperature and pH can make a big difference. You’ll also hear some strong opinions about apple cider vinegar, honest talk about feed quality, and creative ways to keep your birds cool without breaking the bank. So whether you’ve got show birds, backyard layers, or a full-on breeding program, this episode is full of ideas you can put to work right now to help your flock beat the heat. I've got thousands and thousands of chickens, and a lot of'em are getting it year round, not just during the summer, right? We've seen increased feed efficiency, five to 7%. The demeanor of the bird becomes calmer, more relaxed. It the commercial industry knows that you want the gut, the pH of a chicken's gut to be slightly acidic, right? They're trying to it depends on which article you read. Some are driving it down all the way to four pH, which is really low. Between five and a half, six, is where they're happy. So the commercial industry's pumping citric acid right into their chicken water all the time. Yep. And so I don't, I have no idea where that's coming from. I can, I don't know where that thought or, anyway.

Carey Blackmon:

I've entertained it a couple times and I've asked him, I'm like, okay, you stake that claim and it contradicts what I said. Can you please show me like your, the research, what, what is that based off of? And lady said I've had chickens for 30 years and dah. That's great. Have you ever actually taken notes and checked it out and measured the stuff? Anyway I was just curious. Yeah.

Jeff Mattocks:

And adding vinegar to livestock and poultry water been done longer than I've been alive. Okay? So this is not here, and when I get this question from by individuals, I'm like, okay, do this. Put a water out with just plain water or whatever you wanna put in it, okay? And put a water out, with the vinegar in it. Let the chickens tell you. See which one gets empty first. Let the chickens choose. You didn't force'em into drinking it, right? You didn't. You didn't, you didn't deprive'em of fresh, clean water. The chickens will tell you what they want. It's not gonna take long till you figure out that they prefer the one with vinegar. Now, is it stimulating them at another level that. We're not aware of. I don't know, but I been That's right. I've been doing it for years and I've been recommending it and doing it for years. Anyway, it's, you know what, you look around the internet long enough you can find something that'll tell you exactly what you want to hear. Or something that'll scare you to death. So either way. Either way.

Carey Blackmon:

So let's talk more about the importance of air movement especially in coops. I've seen people talk about how they can't get their birds in their coop at night. What's the temperature inside there? It's been baking all day. Do you have air movement? What's the importance of air movement? Especially this time of year in the coops,

Jeff Mattocks:

there's a lot of coops that really. Deprive air movement. Not enough windows. Just, yeah. So I don't blame'em either, right? I, they're, when I was a kid, we didn't have air conditioning. I'd rather sleep outside in a tent than I would just sleep in my bedroom, right? Sit, it is no d. And so if your coop is not well ventilated and good air transfer, you got other issues anyway because now you got bad air in the coop. Those coops need to be ventilated, right? And they need to be well ventilated. Yeah.

Carey Blackmon:

What about frozen? I see people talk about cantaloupe. I see'em talk about watermelon, whether it be frozen or cold, and putting it out in the runs. What about that kind of stuff?

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah, I, I did the same thing with mine. Here's the thing is if you overdo like vegetables, fruit those types of scraps or treats or whatever you want to call'em your eggs, your egg whites and your eggs in general will become very runny.'Cause you've increased the amount of moisture intake, but you've diluted the. The amount of feed that they ate and the amount of protein that they ate. So I had chickens in the backyard, man. I'm like everybody else. I give'em a half a watermelon, a day or so later, you crack one of those eggs and they ran all the way across the pan. Before I did the watermelon, it stood there in a nice circle and stood up tall and had really firm whites and really good yolk. It, it's gonna happen, right? So yeah, I'm not telling you not to do it and you're not really gonna hurt your chicken, but the eggs are going to change, the quality of the egg will change. So just know that, don't freak out. Don't give'em corid, don't give'em medications. You did it right? Yeah. I tell everybody, don't exceed more than 10% supplementation with vegetable waste or like watermelon and cantaloupe. So that's really a small amount, right? If you think about, okay, your chicken should be eating about three to four ounces of feed a day. Yeah, 10% of that is about a half an ounce.

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah.

Jeff Mattocks:

So it's not much. And see what we

Carey Blackmon:

do is, my wife, she'll take a watermelon and cut the part that we eat out and leave the Rhine and with a little bit of meat on it, and she'll cut it into strips or chunks or whatever, and they're, I have a huge bowl of that, and I'll throw a couple of them in each of the pens just for that reason. Also, a lot of times people wanting to give their birds extra treats that are high in protein this time of year. What are your thoughts on that?

Jeff Mattocks:

I. I don't, I don't, yeah. Treats are treats and people tend to get carried away, right? Yeah. Look, I got pets. I got pets as well, and I am guilty, or I have in the past been guilty of giving my pets too many treats. And one they become they become dependent on'em and they expect them, like they won't even eat their feed or, until you show up with the mealworms or whatever your treat's gonna be or so treat is supposed to be something occasional. So just be careful how much you're treating them. Mealworms are really not that much higher in protein. Neither are black soldier fly larvae and some of these other treats. So you are throwing things off a little bit. Look you have to def you have to you have to be honest with yourself, okay? Why are you keeping chickens? If your chickens are a pet, give'em all the treats you want. I, you're not gonna hurt'em. Do what you gotta do. If you're keeping. Chickens to be a professional breeder or exhibition bird, you're gonna throw things off. They they, if you have a truly properly balanced diet, all you're doing is messing that up. Yep. If you want to give'em a treat, why don't you give them some alfalfa? Hey. Hang it in the bag, let'em chase it around. You want to have some fun with'em and you want to give'em a treat. Put a few live minnows in their drinker, and let'em chase those around. And they'll love them, but don't just, there's no need to, we start treating them like our kids or our family. And they, and for some people they are, i'm not stepping on toes, but you have to make that conscious decision of what is the purpose of your chickens, in your system, right? So if they're pets, then treat'em like pets. If they're breeders or show, right? Don't be doing that.

Carey Blackmon:

People throw things

Jeff Mattocks:

off.

Carey Blackmon:

People say to me, they're like, but I, I want this. But is it, is the bird for show? Do you want the bird? Is this something that you put on display or is it a pet? What are you talking about? Let's look at this. Do you think an Olympic athlete varies from their diet? Far, probably not. Just like supermodels, people that do go on the runway. Do you think they vary from their diet? Probably not. They probably follow a very strict regimen. Keep that in mind when you're giving those. We're gonna take a quick break and when we come back we're gonna talk about some emergency heat stress response ideas.

Rip:

We would like to take a short break to express our appreciation to the Fertrell Company for their sponsorship of the Poultry Keepers 360 Live programming. Fertrell has been a trusted name and sustainable farming and poultry nutrition for decades, and their commitment to providing high quality natural product aligned perfectly with the values we hold there in our poultry community. Thank you Fertrell for partnering with us to empower poultry keepers everywhere. We're truly grateful for your dedication and support.

Carey Blackmon:

Those birds didn't look miserable at all.

Jeff Mattocks:

No. But they were in the shade

Carey Blackmon:

that, that they were.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah.

Carey Blackmon:

Like John says, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. Yep. Let's see here. Tell people with pet chickens that if they eat those chickens, they can love them twice.

Jeff Mattocks:

Oh, geez.

Carey Blackmon:

That is a good one. That's, that is a good one. Yep. Yep. Let's see here, we got another one. What can be used to clean the water cup? I have well water that builds up in the cups.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah, that's not, I'm guessing he is got harder water. I don't know if he's got iron, higher iron or if he's got calcium. Depends on what color the residue is. Of course iron will be rusty red and calcium will be white and manganese will be black. So it just depends on what's in there. There's no good answer, Dan. Other than pulling the cups and just scrubbing them like crazy.

Carey Blackmon:

So one of the things that I've done that has made a huge difference for me is, everybody knows that I was using a filter on my hose pipes for my wattles. That was just a regular water filter. They also make'em that are for mineral filters. Specifically for people that are on wells. And since doing that, I have had even less problems in my water lines. I'm not getting any of that anymore because even though I'm on CD water, I was still having a lot of the white ba buildup in some of my wattles.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah, unless you can figure out a way to soften the water somehow. It's gonna be, it just depends on the hardness, for you and Dan. It's depends on that total hardness of the water.

Carey Blackmon:

Let's see. What about, could you do like maybe use some bowls or something like that? Put some cool water in that for them to get in? Will chickens walk around in water like that?

Jeff Mattocks:

They will. There's some people that'll use something like a kitty pool, and I actually, I saw one lady was taking like this, the low height Rubbermaid containers. And freezing like inch and a half, two inches of. Ice she would even put the cantaloupe and the watermelon in there as a frozen treat, and they could work their way to it. So by the time it melted, they also had something to eat. And, but that'd be cool. I saw pictures of the chickens just standing on top of that ice block as it was melting, and, they were cooling off their feet. Yeah. That's the thing. And they will walk in cool water, right? Once they figure it out. Okay. First time you ever do something for chickens, they're like, wait, this isn't normal. This isn't right. And yeah, they're like, what is this? This is different. Yeah. You gotta give'em time to figure it out and,

Carey Blackmon:

all right, let's see. Avoiding cold shock. You

Jeff Mattocks:

mean serving'em too cold to water?

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah. That was one of the things that was mentioned in the topic.

Jeff Mattocks:

I've never seen it happen. They just won't drink it. But again, you're leading to dehydration because if it's too cold, they won't drink it. Even, even here in our winters if that water wasn't above 45 or 50 degrees, there was a significant reduction in water intake, yeah. And of course then that reduces feed intake and that reduces the number of eggs laid and, it's the trickle down effect. So

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah. So snowball effect from there. Yeah.

Jeff Mattocks:

They'll drink it at 50. 45, 50. They don't like it as much, like I said, 65, 65 to 80, somewhere in there is really good water temperature for'em. That's where they're gonna be happier.

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah. All right. Let's see here. Found out the pH and alkalinity is high in my water. Recessed the water after adding apple cider vinegar to drop it to seven in the alkalinity between zero and 40.

Jeff Mattocks:

That's good.

Carey Blackmon:

Say that. That sounds really good.

Jeff Mattocks:

And those those pH test strips are not. They're not that expensive. You can buy'em, I don't know, 20 or 50 or whatever in a little tube, right? And as long as you keep'em in a good storage place, they're good for years. So you can check your own pH.

Carey Blackmon:

So I actually buy'em personally about a hundred at a time. That's what's in the little black, it's a little black container. It's about. Three inches long. It's got the chemical reaction strip, and on the outside's, the sticker, you match the color to know your pH. Yep. But I wanna say it's like 12, 13 bucks on Amazon for a hundred of'em. Yeah,

Jeff Mattocks:

They're not expensive.

Carey Blackmon:

Because every once in a while I do check the pH of mine as well. Rob says that you can use the nipples. And then you won't have to clean anything.

Jeff Mattocks:

I'm really glad you put that up'cause I'm gonna challenge you, Rob. Okay. Do a flush and a clean out of that nipple line where the water's being held before it comes out of the nipple. And'cause I've seen nipple lines cleaned in commercial houses and they are grungy, dirty, nasty. Not good at all. So the line going to the nipples, the PVC that holds the nipples. Definitely if yours are nipples in a line, yeah, you gotta, you need to flush that line probably quarterly, I would say every 90 days or more minimum every 90 days. There's some really nasty stuff. And in the commercial houses, they use some really strong, like chlorhexidine combinations to flush those. Yeah. Dang. And they'll do it, they'll do it more than once. They'll do it, like they'll do it. They wait, they'll fill the line with that solution. They'll let it sit for 24 hours. They'll flush that out. They'll redo it, and they'll. So they just

Carey Blackmon:

put in some temporary wattles when they do it?

Jeff Mattocks:

No. They do this when there's no birds in the house. But between birds. Okay. So

Carey Blackmon:

When they're flipping the house?

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah. Okay. They can't do it with birds in the house.

Carey Blackmon:

I was gonna say, how the crap do they do that with'em in there?

Jeff Mattocks:

If they do it with the birds in the house, if they feel the need to do that while the birds are in the house, they'll raise the, they'll raise the lines up so the birds can't access the nipples. Like they'll do one line at a time. And Got it. They can do a flush, but the bird can't actually drink that water, until they've flushed it, multiple times to get fresh water back into it. Yeah.'cause this stuff will kill him. So it's nasty.

Carey Blackmon:

Let's see. He says he uses cups and he has a drain plug at the end of the line to clean it out once a week or even when it's hot. Cleans it out every other day.

Jeff Mattocks:

Ah. That's John. Yeah.

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah, that's a good idea.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah.

Carey Blackmon:

Open that valve up and just let it all out. Do that.

Jeff Mattocks:

I wonder, is Rob on city water? It may already be chlorinated and that may be, that may be the difference for him. That may be the difference for him. But,

Carey Blackmon:

and I can say that since I started running mine through filters, I've seen a lot less problems. Yeah, so it, he said it's city water. His is city water.

Jeff Mattocks:

Okay. Yeah. So it's already being treated to some degree. And he may have good city water compared to a lot of people you know, aren't you on city water care?

Music:

Yeah.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah. And I wouldn't call yours good city water.

Carey Blackmon:

My city water straight out of the kitchen sink. If you smell it, you won't drink it.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah. Yep. And I've seen other people, same situation. Yeah. It's, I don't know even how the municipality can consider it safe to drink, they put enough chlorine in it. And it's bacteria free.

Carey Blackmon:

And

Jeff Mattocks:

they send

Carey Blackmon:

you out that good old test report every quarter to

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah.

Carey Blackmon:

Disclose everything that's in it, if you can read it right? Yeah, I don't drink it. If we have no bottled water, we'll use water that's filtered through the refrigerator. There's a filter on the line behind the refrigerator, and there's a filter inside the refrigerator. Yeah. Sue says she was on the fence about apple cider vinegar. She used it last week. Huge positive change.

Jeff Mattocks:

If I can get more water into'em because there's apple cider vinegar in that water, that's a win. Okay. The more water I can get into'em this time of year. I'm happy. So like I said, try it, see what you think. I ain't trying to sell you a used car here, and I ain't making a nickel off of telling you to use it, so

Carey Blackmon:

it is what it is,

Jeff Mattocks:

yeah.

Carey Blackmon:

Does anybody have any questions? We've got a few minutes left.

Jeff Mattocks:

Laura had a question about Lyme. You skipped over.

Carey Blackmon:

Let's see. Oh, okay. Yeah, I got it. What's the difference between non-slip barn line and plain barn line?

Jeff Mattocks:

The particle size, so what they do for the non-slip line is they run it across the screen and they keep everything that's similar to a sand. Like particle. So when the livestock walk on it, it actually access traction and even when it gets wet, it doesn't get slippery. Whereas the pulverized lime, when it gets wet, it gets really slippery. Yeah. So it's just especially on, on concrete. Yeah. It's just basically particle size, the grittiness and the texture.

Carey Blackmon:

Yep. That's a good one.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah, heat stress is real, folks, so we just need to make sure we're doing the best we can to try and get is the high content

Carey Blackmon:

of fluoride bad for the chickens?

Jeff Mattocks:

That's like pol talking politics and religion and I'm not gonna touch that one, John. You do your own research, but

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah.

Jeff Mattocks:

Me personally, I don't have fluoridated water. Okay. There's no fluoride in my water. I've been on a well for, I don't know how long and still live. Yep.

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah. You can use it under pound savings.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah.

Carey Blackmon:

Let's see. Rob says that the 50 gallon barrel that he used came from the Coca-Cola bottling factory. Smelled like Dr. Pepper for the first man. That's an awesome smell,

Jeff Mattocks:

man. I wanna be a chicken at Rob's place, man. You gimme Dr. Pepper water, man.

Carey Blackmon:

Come on. That's cool.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah.

Carey Blackmon:

Let's see here. Two by four horse panel section attached to the side of the coup. 55 gallon plastic barrel on the outside of the coup. Cut off 10 gallon mark. Garden hose notch. Freeze miser in the winter

Jeff Mattocks:

garden hose with a nozzle cracked. Yeah, keep it topped off. And they add a freeze monitor in the winter.

Carey Blackmon:

And I use a lot of float valves in my buckets and they have a y adapter. So going into the float valve is a y adapter, and I use those freeze misers. I figured out why they can get away with charging what they do for'em, because they're worth it. You replace a water line in your chicken yard in the middle of the winter and you'll you'll wanna get'em too. You guys are awesome. Look forward to seeing you at APA. Mine helped me with Bud. He wanted to watch you guys while I'm killing myself in the heat in the kitchen from canning. We're, I'm so sorry. We try to help y'all with Bud, but we all love him. You can only do so much. Let's see here. Rob says, mine uses the pipe heater on the PVC pipe, off the barrel with nipples. Works great. That does work great. I have also, what we were talking about earlier when Jeff was telling y'all about, what I'm gonna do with the flowing water is I'm gonna use an aquarium heater. I have a friend of mine that lives in Wisconsin and she has quail. She uses a four inch water pipe beside her on the end of her quail water cages, and has the nipples in'em. And in the wintertime with snow stacked up against that thing, that water hasn't frozen, and all she has in it is a aquarium pump. Aquarium heater that she puts all the way down at the bottom of it. Hot air rises. She doesn't have any problem. So

Jeff Mattocks:

look, I built a wooden box outta one by eight. That my and I used the old fashioned five gallon, white and red fountain drinker.'Cause I had one group of chickens. I didn't have multiple pens, so I put a, an electrical box, a light socket, and an incandescent bulb under there. And I drilled a hole, ran a cord, plugged it in. Here's the thing, at nine o'clock at night when I was going to bed, I could look out the window and if I saw this pink glow in the chicken yard,

Music:

yep.

Jeff Mattocks:

I knew the next morning my chicken's water would not be frozen. Okay. Yeah. Look, it was simple. I lined the box with that foil sided insulation board, one inch thick insulation board foiled, and I, I just made the box so that drinker would sit on the edges and it worked great. I was happy.

Carey Blackmon:

That makes sense. I've also seen another thing people would do with getting a. Light socket in a outdoor type housing, put in the incandescent bulb, put a concrete block on top of it and set the bucket on top of that. However you do it, there's a lot of different

Jeff Mattocks:

ways. The eight inch wooden box got it up to the right height, so they didn't waste as much water. And like I said, that nice pink glow at nine at night, right before I go to bed, I could look out my bedroom window. I could sleep with confidence that I wasn't gonna have frozen water in the morning.

Carey Blackmon:

The only issue with using an incandescent bulb these days is they're getting harder and harder to find.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yeah. I hope they come back. I really hope they come back. But yeah, I hear you. Do we have

Carey Blackmon:

any other questions? I. Let's see here. Bird bath heater in the bucket, and it works in Wisconsin. That's good. I have seen a couple people doing that as well.

Jeff Mattocks:

Yep.

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah. Anything like, that'll work.

Jeff Mattocks:

Whatever works for you. It's not, there's not a one size fits all. Perfect situation. For you gotta, you need to adapt to your environment and make it work.

Carey Blackmon:

Yep. Same in the summertime, same in the winter. We're from all over on this show and you just all over, you gotta figure out what works. We were actually looking at the dynamics a while back and literally all over the world all right, with that we will say goodnight.

Alex:

Thanks for joining us for another episode of The Poultry Keepers Podcast. Be sure to join us for a brand new topic next Tuesday. Until then, keep learning, keep improving and keep enjoying the birds you love.

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John Gunterman

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Mandelyn Royal

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Rip Stalvey

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