Arizona Chickens

[dofnup]

I have misters, I have them at about 6', i.e. the top of the coop. The chickens love them!

We have an automatic timer on the hose and they turn on at 10:30 am and go to 2:30 pm

DH wants to lower them, tho.

Mahonri ... I ALWAYS want blue eggers

, so I might just pass on that olive egger if it's OK for me to wait for that potential blue egger to start laying. If I can get my hands on one of your beauties, I don't mind waiting AND I won't even ask for DH's permission, LOL

Just let me know when you want to sell and I will take her, woohoo!!

 

[gckiddhouse]

Quote:
We have our misters hanging on the roof of the run that our chickens live in which is about 6 ft high. We usually let it hang in loops down to about 5 feet. You want it to cool the air without soaking the ground too quickly.

We have ours come on about 4 times a day for 20 - 40 minutes depending on the heat. Right now it isn't too bad, up to 107*, so 20 minutes gets the air and ground cooled off, but once it gets to be 110* everyday, we may turn it up to 40 minutes. We find that if the ground stays wet too long, it really attracts roaches and crickets at night, so we like for it to be pretty dry by the end of the day. It comes on at 11, 12:30, 2:00 and 3:30.

Hope that helps.

 

[gckiddhouse]

Wanted to share our latest saga with you all. If you know you have scorpions in your yard at all, you may be interested.

We discovered that a bark scorpion sting will kill a chicken. We did not know that until last night. Fortunately, ours has not died. She seems to be on the mend. So here is what happened and what we did.

Last night, we got home late (after 10 pm) and went out to shut the coop for the night. We discovered that the misters were still on (the valve gets stuck sometimes), and when I went to shut off the water, I noticed a large scorpion on the wall just finishing off a large roach for a late night snack. Ew!

DD went to the coop and brought a barred rock hen to eat it. The chickens just

scorpions! Well, sure enough, she jumped at the opportunity to eat such a treat, but unfortunately, it stung her in the process. We knew it had because she immediately started scratching her face and shaking her head. We put her back in the coop and watched.

She walked slowly and within a minute or so she sat down on the ground, then she looked like she was falling asleep. Then she looked like she couldn't get up. She started to gape and seemed to be having trouble breathing. DD and I felt so badly that we had offered her a treat that might have meant her death.

I am not one to perform heroics on chickens, but I did come in and check BYC for threads about scorpion stings. Turns out, many folks have lost chickens to scorpions. Seems that many chickens die from a scorpion sting. Then I found a thread where a woman had given her hen a small dose of Benedryl and the hen pulled through. This didn't seem like heroics, just a dropper to the beak and we didn't have much to lose, so we tried it.

We gave her 1ml of children's Benedryl liquid. DH (pharmacist) says 1/2ml would have been plenty for a chicken, oops. We put her on the mesh floor of the coop and let her stay there all night. She couldn't move. She seemed paralyzed and her breathing was labored. Her comb and wattle stayed nice and red, though, so she was moving air. We checked on her a few more times.

This morning she was still down, but more alert. She has not been able to get up at all today. She is probably gorked out on Benedryl in addition to the numbness that has probably resulted from the sting. She is alert and drinking water but has not eaten. We have separated her and she is recovering.

This makes me wonder about the last chicken we lost. We assumed that the heat or the lice (still fighting that one) were the culprit, but now I wonder if she may have gotten stung. DD said she was peacefully lying in a dust bathing hole under a tree. Wonder if she tried to eat a scorpion and got stung, then became paralyzed and went to sleep.

I know that chickens can die from the heat, but maybe some of them are stung or bitten by something and just can't deal with the poison. Just a thought. We do have scorpions in our yard. We don't seem many, but the chickens are looking for them and they know where to look.

Anyone else have this experience?

Here is the thread about the woman who used Benedryl https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=185520

 

[mclevinson]

Quote:

 

[mclevinson]

OFF TOPIC:

If you are interested in attending a cold process soap making class in Queen Creek (Ironwood and Combs) let me know. Due to safety considerations I cannot give classes at home so DesertRat has generously offered his kitchen. It has to be on Sunday so DH can keep the kidlets for me.

If interested, PM me your preference for starting time and which of the next 2 or 3 Sunday's work best for you. Plan to be there 3 hours max.

We will cover cold process, oven hot process (a shortcut for non-milk soaps), milk soaps, spa bars (salt soap). This is a basic class, you will make basic soap and watch me demo the more demanding ones.

I will provide a simple written handout with resources; my favorite yahoo groups for online support, favorite (most accurate) books, a way to get bulk oils on the cheap (you know shipping has killed many a soap making endeavor), and some basic recipes.

I have been making soap for about 18 years, and have taught this class and done private classes.

Meg

 

[tightwad]

Quote:
Haven't experienced it with chickens, just the husband. Great info to have on hand (thank you!) as we have lots of scorpions that live in the block walls surrounding our yard. Our coop/run is just a few inches from the wall. Since scorpions come out to feed at night I didn't think that the chickens would have much opportunity for a snack since they're on the roost by then. Children's Benadryl is going on my shopping list.

Based on my husband's descriptions of scorpion stings I imagine that chickens would, more often than not, die. So glad yours is improving.

 

[mclevinson]

DH was stung on the hand last year. He was in such incredible pain for 3 days I was begging to take him to the hospital for pain management but we were broke and he wouldn't do it.

We have moved since then and thank goodness I haven't seen a single scorpion.

Quote:
Haven't experienced it with chickens, just the husband. Great info to have on hand (thank you!) as we have lots of scorpions that live in the block walls surrounding our yard. Our coop/run is just a few inches from the wall. Since scorpions come out to feed at night I didn't think that the chickens would have much opportunity for a snack since they're on the roost by then. Children's Benadryl is going on my shopping list.

Based on my husband's descriptions of scorpion stings I imagine that chickens would, more often than not, die. So glad yours is improving.

 

[constance]

Quote:
Thanks for posting this! I had not worried about scorpions, they are probably out there, and I do have a LARGE harvester ant colony we are trying to convince to move. It is great to know about the Benadryl, it could be a lifesaver.

 

[AZKat]

My misters are hung about six feet off the ground. I generally turn the misters on around 11, and then leave them on until 4 or 5.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

tukeybreeder and Lyongirl, I'm so sorry to hear about your losses. It must have been heartbreaking.
dofnup, tightwad and mclevinson and anyone else I missed

gckiddhouse, thanks for taking the time to re-tell that story. I'm sad for you that it happened, but I think it will be very helpful to others and I found it very interesting.

constance, I can't believe how big some of those guys are and beautiful too! I wish so much that we could have roosters, but since we can't, I'm so glad mine are gone. Good luck finding homes for them. I haven't seen a scorpion here in the city for as long as I've lived here. I keep expecting to find one, but I haven't.