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  1. AZ Turkeys

    Pros and Cons for using sand

    Pure sand is not a good coop base material, cold or hot climate for all the reasons mentioned. A small sandy area for dust bathing is excellent. For coop runs, well drained soil is the best. If your soils hold water, have a lot of clay, spade it up and mix in some sand, keep some alfalfa in part...
  2. AZ Turkeys

    Give up free-ranging?

    Keeping a rooster is the BEST solution for daytime predators. Here in northern AZ we have resident hawks, eagles, and even ravens who enjoy my free rangers far too much. The rooster, and the Tom Gobbler with my turkeys are incredible at protecting their flock. They will sound the alarm and every...
  3. AZ Turkeys

    Arizona Chickens

    This applies to chickens as well, and I raise both. No need to raise turkeys:) I was replying to a post. Sorry that you feel I hijacked the post. Yes, it is backyard chickens, and perhaps I need to start a site of my own for just turkeys. There are a lot of growers of both, and poultry...
  4. AZ Turkeys

    Arizona Chickens

    I hatch, grow and process about 30 Narragansetts every year. I start the lights on the chickens in Oct and the turkeys in November...just about T-day. It takes the turkeys about a month to 6 weeks to start laying after the lights.
  5. AZ Turkeys

    Arizona Chickens

    Lights on for the turkey hens at least 14 hours. I start getting eggs in January and hatch through May. As to taste...there is no comparison between a heritage turkey and a commercial double breasted turkey. I raise Narragansetts here in Cottonwood and can't grow enough for the holiday market:)
  6. AZ Turkeys

    Arizona Chickens

    Keep the coop. The chick bug will strike again in the Spring:)
  7. AZ Turkeys

    Ended Official BYC Contest—Post Your Best (Worst) Chicken Molt Pictures—Fall/Winter 2014

    You can add light without stress. Simply hang a 40 watt bulb in a heat lamp hood and plug it into a timer. Set the timer for 5 am on and off at sunrise to ensure your hens get as close to 14 hours of light as possible. It won't stress them when the light comes on in the morning. Make sure they...
  8. AZ Turkeys

    2015 BYC Calendar - Your Pictures Needed!

    Narransett tom with his a couple of his hens. Great heritage breed ! Lu
  9. AZ Turkeys

    Arizona Chickens

    Hope you get tomatoes. Hens LOVE green tomatoes LOL. Sounds like a great set up though. Another treat for your girls.. get mulberry tree berries. The berries are very nutritious and hens love them.
  10. AZ Turkeys

    Arizona Chickens

    First, before the monsoon, go in and mound the dirt toward the center so that everything slopes outward. Second, pick a side out of the rain and eaves and put sand down and then pine shavings. Once the shavings are wet, they are easy to rake out. I have a small ditch about 2 inches deep all...
  11. AZ Turkeys

    Arizona Chickens

    Watermelon and canteloupe great! Cabbage NO. Chicks can't fart or burp the gases. Skip kale and cabbage. Use a veggie net bag like an onion bag and chop up chunks of carrots, apples, all squash and hang the bag. They'll love that too.
  12. AZ Turkeys

    Arizona Chickens

    The eggs may have started incubating, either from the natural heat or a hen may have set on them for an hour or two before you got them. Sounds like they are at day 5 or so. It could shorten your incubation period. Candle at 15 days. As to the quail, as long as they hadn't started incubating...
  13. AZ Turkeys

    Arizona Chickens

    So sorry that City folks are anti poultry, anti animal. Maybe they should be anti food as well.
  14. AZ Turkeys

    Arizona Chickens

    Hens Will Eat anything~! One of the hens I dispatched tonight had a wood screw inside. When I first opened the abdomen, I noticed a large, hard black clump which at first I thought was a cancerous growth. I immediately thought, ut oh... this guy isn't going to be able to eat this hen. As I...
  15. AZ Turkeys

    Arizona Chickens

    Get some 2 or 3 year old Rhode Island Reds or Black Australopes. Lots of people have older hens they want to replace so they might even be free. Both are calm birds and deal with our heat well as long as they have shade and water. Both are brown egg layes. Older hens of any breed will be calm.
  16. AZ Turkeys

    Arizona Chickens

    It could be heat and the lack of humidity combined. Make sure they have shade and a dust bath. Also may be the onset of molt. Some of my pullets went into molt earlier than normal this year. I think it is because it has been so dry and windy up here. Hens hate wind. Stress can easily throw a...
  17. AZ Turkeys

    Arizona Chickens

    These are all GREAT ideas. For my hens here in North Central AZ, temps in the morning of 50 rising to 110 in the pm can be huge problem as well. I totally agree with buckets for water and not waterers! When it gets over 100 i add ice cubes to the pails. I use Big Mouth paint pails, about 99...
  18. AZ Turkeys

    Arizona Chickens

    Sonoran, You are correct. I was simply pointing out that TSC isn't going to really change the landscape much for us poultry folks, just bring more competition to locally owned feed stores. As to chicks, most of AZ and NM use Privett in NM as I don't believe AZ has a large scale hatchery. I do...
  19. AZ Turkeys

    Arizona Chickens

    TSC is just the Wal Mart of the "country rural lifestyle". They are opening 12 stores in AZ this year. As to poultry equipment, not anything extraordinary. The feeders and waterers all come from China. The plastic feeders and waterers are junk. Bottoms and tops don't line up easily and the ears...
  20. AZ Turkeys

    Arizona Chickens

    Relax, Noodle Girl. The gasp you heard was not because the hen felt it. It is muscles Nothing more, nothing less. Couple of tips. Hold the bird gently upside down for a minute or two. It puts them into a stupor or trance. Also, I use a cone or hang them head down rather than holding them in my...
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