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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.
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Today we’re diving into Part Two of our summer survival series: Beat the Heat Proven Ways to Prevent Heat Stress in Your Birds.
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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’.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I've got thousands and thousands of chickens, and a lot of'em are getting it year round, not just during the summer, right?
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We've seen increased feed efficiency, five to 7%.
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The demeanor of the bird becomes calmer, more relaxed.
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It the commercial industry knows that you want the gut, the pH of a chicken's gut to be slightly acidic, right?
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They're trying to it depends on which article you read.
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Some are driving it down all the way to four pH, which is really low.
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Between five and a half, six, is where they're happy.
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So the commercial industry's pumping citric acid right into their chicken water all the time.
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Yep.
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And so I don't, I have no idea where that's coming from.
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I can, I don't know where that thought or, anyway.
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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.
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Can you please show me like your, the research, what, what is that based off of?
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And lady said I've had chickens for 30 years and dah.
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That's great.
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Have you ever actually taken notes and checked it out and measured the stuff?
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Anyway I was just curious.
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Yeah.
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And adding vinegar to livestock and poultry water been done longer than I've been alive.
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Okay?
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So this is not here, and when I get this question from by individuals, I'm like, okay, do this.
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Put a water out with just plain water or whatever you wanna put in it, okay?
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And put a water out, with the vinegar in it.
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Let the chickens tell you.
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See which one gets empty first.
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Let the chickens choose.
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You didn't force'em into drinking it, right?
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You didn't.
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You didn't, you didn't deprive'em of fresh, clean water.
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The chickens will tell you what they want.
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It's not gonna take long till you figure out that they prefer the one with vinegar.
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Now, is it stimulating them at another level that.
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We're not aware of.
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I don't know, but I been That's right.
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I've been doing it for years and I've been recommending it and doing it for years.
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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.
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Or something that'll scare you to death.
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So either way.
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Either way.
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So let's talk more about the importance of air movement especially in coops.
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I've seen people talk about how they can't get their birds in their coop at night.
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What's the temperature inside there?
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It's been baking all day.
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Do you have air movement?
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What's the importance of air movement?
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Especially this time of year in the coops,
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there's a lot of coops that really.
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Deprive air movement.
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Not enough windows.
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Just, yeah.
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So I don't blame'em either, right?
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I, they're, when I was a kid, we didn't have air conditioning.
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I'd rather sleep outside in a tent than I would just sleep in my bedroom, right?
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Sit, it is no d.
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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.
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Those coops need to be ventilated, right?
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And they need to be well ventilated.
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Yeah.
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What about frozen?
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I see people talk about cantaloupe.
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I see'em talk about watermelon, whether it be frozen or cold, and putting it out in the runs.
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What about that kind of stuff?
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Yeah, I, I did the same thing with mine.
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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.
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'Cause you've increased the amount of moisture intake, but you've diluted the.
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The amount of feed that they ate and the amount of protein that they ate.
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So I had chickens in the backyard, man.
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I'm like everybody else.
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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.
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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.
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It, it's gonna happen, right?
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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.
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So just know that, don't freak out.
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Don't give'em corid, don't give'em medications.
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You did it right?
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Yeah.
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I tell everybody, don't exceed more than 10% supplementation with vegetable waste or like watermelon and cantaloupe.
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So that's really a small amount, right?
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If you think about, okay, your chicken should be eating about three to four ounces of feed a day.
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Yeah, 10% of that is about a half an ounce.
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Yeah.
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So it's not much.
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And see what we
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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.
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Also, a lot of times people wanting to give their birds extra treats that are high in protein this time of year.
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What are your thoughts on that?
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I.
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I don't, I don't, yeah.
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Treats are treats and people tend to get carried away, right?
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Yeah.
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Look, I got pets.
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I got pets as well, and I am guilty, or I have in the past been guilty of giving my pets too many treats.
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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.
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So just be careful how much you're treating them.
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Mealworms are really not that much higher in protein.
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Neither are black soldier fly larvae and some of these other treats.
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So you are throwing things off a little bit.
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Look you have to def you have to you have to be honest with yourself, okay?
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Why are you keeping chickens?
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If your chickens are a pet, give'em all the treats you want.
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I, you're not gonna hurt'em.
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Do what you gotta do.
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If you're keeping.
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Chickens to be a professional breeder or exhibition bird, you're gonna throw things off.
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They they, if you have a truly properly balanced diet, all you're doing is messing that up.
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Yep.
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If you want to give'em a treat, why don't you give them some alfalfa?
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Hey.
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Hang it in the bag, let'em chase it around.
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You want to have some fun with'em and you want to give'em a treat.
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Put a few live minnows in their drinker, and let'em chase those around.
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And they'll love them, but don't just, there's no need to, we start treating them like our kids or our family.
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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?
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So if they're pets, then treat'em like pets.
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If they're breeders or show, right?
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Don't be doing that.
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People throw things
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off.
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People say to me, they're like, but I, I want this.
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But is it, is the bird for show?
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Do you want the bird?
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Is this something that you put on display or is it a pet?
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What are you talking about?
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Let's look at this.
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Do you think an Olympic athlete varies from their diet?
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Far, probably not.
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Just like supermodels, people that do go on the runway.
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Do you think they vary from their diet?
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Probably not.
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They probably follow a very strict regimen.
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Keep that in mind when you're giving those.
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We're gonna take a quick break and when we come back we're gonna talk about some emergency heat stress response ideas.
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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.
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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.
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Thank you Fertrell for partnering with us to empower poultry keepers everywhere.
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We're truly grateful for your dedication and support.
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Those birds didn't look miserable at all.
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No.
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But they were in the shade
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that, that they were.
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Yeah.
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Like John says, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.
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Yep.
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Let's see here.
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Tell people with pet chickens that if they eat those chickens, they can love them twice.
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Oh, geez.
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That is a good one.
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That's, that is a good one.
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Yep.
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Yep.
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Let's see here, we got another one.
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What can be used to clean the water cup?
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I have well water that builds up in the cups.
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Yeah, that's not, I'm guessing he is got harder water.
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I don't know if he's got iron, higher iron or if he's got calcium.
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Depends on what color the residue is.
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Of course iron will be rusty red and calcium will be white and manganese will be black.
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So it just depends on what's in there.
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There's no good answer, Dan.
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Other than pulling the cups and just scrubbing them like crazy.
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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.
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That was just a regular water filter.
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They also make'em that are for mineral filters.
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Specifically for people that are on wells.
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And since doing that, I have had even less problems in my water lines.
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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.
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Yeah, unless you can figure out a way to soften the water somehow.
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It's gonna be, it just depends on the hardness, for you and Dan.
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It's depends on that total hardness of the water.
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Let's see.
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What about, could you do like maybe use some bowls or something like that?
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Put some cool water in that for them to get in?
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Will chickens walk around in water like that?
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They will.
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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.
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And freezing like inch and a half, two inches of.
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Ice she would even put the cantaloupe and the watermelon in there as a frozen treat, and they could work their way to it.
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So by the time it melted, they also had something to eat.
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And, but that'd be cool.
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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.
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Yeah.
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That's the thing.
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And they will walk in cool water, right?
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Once they figure it out.
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Okay.
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First time you ever do something for chickens, they're like, wait, this isn't normal.
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This isn't right.
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And yeah, they're like, what is this?
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This is different.
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Yeah.
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You gotta give'em time to figure it out and,
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all right, let's see.
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Avoiding cold shock.
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You
00:13:25.548 --> 00:13:27.378
mean serving'em too cold to water?
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Yeah.
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That was one of the things that was mentioned in the topic.
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I've never seen it happen.
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They just won't drink it.
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But again, you're leading to dehydration because if it's too cold, they won't drink it.
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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.
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And of course then that reduces feed intake and that reduces the number of eggs laid and, it's the trickle down effect.
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So
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Yeah.
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So snowball effect from there.
00:14:01.898 --> 00:14:02.107
Yeah.
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They'll drink it at 50.
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45, 50.
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They don't like it as much, like I said, 65, 65 to 80, somewhere in there is really good water temperature for'em.
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That's where they're gonna be happier.
00:14:17.863 --> 00:14:18.153
Yeah.
00:14:19.052 --> 00:14:19.393
All right.
00:14:20.293 --> 00:14:20.474
Let's see here.
00:14:21.374 --> 00:14:24.828
Found out the pH and alkalinity is high in my water.
00:14:25.548 --> 00:14:35.599
Recessed the water after adding apple cider vinegar to drop it to seven in the alkalinity between zero and 40.
00:14:36.499 --> 00:14:36.979
That's good.
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Say that.
00:14:38.624 --> 00:14:40.714
That sounds really good.
00:14:41.144 --> 00:14:43.208
And those those pH test strips are not.
00:14:44.109 --> 00:14:45.219
They're not that expensive.
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You can buy'em, I don't know, 20 or 50 or whatever in a little tube, right?
00:14:50.928 --> 00:14:54.859
And as long as you keep'em in a good storage place, they're good for years.
00:14:55.369 --> 00:14:57.349
So you can check your own pH.
00:14:58.249 --> 00:15:02.089
So I actually buy'em personally about a hundred at a time.
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That's what's in the little black, it's a little black container.
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It's about.
00:15:06.408 --> 00:15:07.548
Three inches long.
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It's got the chemical reaction strip, and on the outside's, the sticker, you match the color to know your pH.
00:15:14.719 --> 00:15:14.869
Yep.
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But I wanna say it's like 12, 13 bucks on Amazon for a hundred of'em.
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Yeah,
00:15:18.839 --> 00:15:19.438
They're not expensive.