Cheerleading: Does it make me a Crazy Chicken Lady if...

Okay, I think I am officially Chicken Obsessed! This week we were having some really HOT days. And although I have done a lot to cool down the chicken run for my chicks, I was still having a problem keeping the inside of the coop cool enough. This would not normally be an issue since the little chickens don't usually go inside during the day. But I do have one layer, Big Red, who seems to go inside to lay an egg when it is at the hottest times of the day. She is probably baking her brains in there, sitting in that nest box when it is easily 100 degrees inside, even with the fan circulating the air. Her egg production has had a few issues this week and I think some of it is because of the heat in the coop when she goes inside to lay.

So while I was hanging out inside my air conditioned house, trying to figure out how I could possibly cool it down for her, I got an idea...

Yes, that is an A/C unit sticking out of my chicken coop window. Crazy, I know, to install A/C for your chickens, but hey, they are my pets as well as my egg producers. Wouldn't you provide the very best for your pets? Well, I would. I just happened to have a $150.00 gift card I got for signing up for DirectTv service recently, so I took the card and went shopping at Home Depot for an inexpensive, small room A/C window unit. I found this one for $119.

It's has an energy saver rating and is suppose to only use approximately $42 of electricity per year. Since my goal is to keep the coop in the 80's and not as low as I have it inside my house, I figured it wouldn't use too much electricity.

So Early on Father's day the hubby and I installed this unit in the window of our coop. As you can see from my thermostat inside the coop, it was already 91 degrees at 8:35 am!

With the A/C unit we managed to keep the inside temps in the mid 80's all day, running it on low cool, despite the outside temps in the high 90's. When dusk came and the temperatures dropped down in to the low 70's (and down to the 60's during the night) the thermostat on the A/C unit turned the compressor off. The next day when the temps began to climb again it turned itself back on. Nice!

And here is the lovely egg Big Red left for us as a 'Thank You' for her new A/C unit...

So yes, I may be the crazy chicken lady, but my chickens are probably the happiest chickens in the state of Arizona!

I bought these cool tote & grocery bags for myself recently...Now I think it's even more appropriate than the day I bought them, Ha ha ha!!