Arizona Chickens

[Mikey D]

Quote:
Anne,

I don't know about the folks around here ('cause I'm still a noob) but without exception everyone I have communicated with has been quite open minded and friendly. My daughter is in a polyamerous (?sp?) relationship. It took me a bit to get used to the idea but both of her husbands are really nice guys. Welcome to the board.

Mikey

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

pimachickens, I feel for you! I would focus the sealing of cracks and crevices to those nearest the roost. I think I found nearly all of the ticks in my coop within a foot or so of the roost. I like the idea of vaseline over the roost support and even considered it myself. Another thing you could use is something called "tanglefoot." It's specially designed to capture insects. My only concern with that is having a chicken get caught in it, but I think you could design something to keep them from getting into it. You're right on, if you can keep the ticks from getting back on to the chickens, your battle is much easier. I sprayed the metal bracket supports, roosts and surrounding areas with Orange Guard right about an hour before roosting time every night for a couple of weeks. Those measures took care of most of them, but stragglers showed up for days (if not weeks). Hang in there, now it's just a matter of vigilance.

desertmarcy, unfortunately, guineas would only be victims to this kind of tick. These ticks are nocturnal, hiding in cracks during daylight hours, safe from predation from hungry tick-eating guineas.

 

[AZBootsie]

Anne

Ok gonna try to answer some of your questions also:

1. My coops are about as far away from my house as you can get. This was to please my "city boy" husband who had some misconceptions about how "dirty and stinky" chickens are. Yes, at times I wish they were closer. I am guessing it is about 250ish feet from the back porch.

2. Coop #1 is 7x9 with a big run (300+ sf ). General rule of thumb around BYC is 4sf per chicken in the coop and 10sf per chicken in the run. I am bad. I figure with our Arizona weather 3sf per chicken in the coop is fine with as much run space as possible. My chickens are healthy and look happy to me. Coop #2 is just a small 4x7 lean to coop with about a 75 sf run. I had to throw it together a few months ago, because my chicks were growing faster than I could build new coops. Coops 3&4 are duplexes. 4x8' each. 1 has a run of 120sf and the other has a run of about 150sf. I am still working on this building. With any luck the last duplex should be finished in the next couple of weeks.

3. This month I rehomed several chickens and picked up 2 new chicks. But, I think the count is 37 right now.

4. I scrape off the roosts and poop boards every couple of days. The floor gets raked about once a week. The run I guess about once a month. Should be done more often....but this is what I have time for.

5. I collect eggs usually a couple of times a day.

6. Pine shavings came out in June when I hooked up the misters. Now it is sand. When it cools off I will fill it back up with pine shavings.

7. floors are hardware cloth covered with about 8 inches of packed dirt.

8. Seems like my birds are flying through feed. Last trip to the feed store was less than 2 weeks ago, came home with 50 lbs of grower crumbles and 100 lbs of layer pellets. They will be out of food again in a couple of days.

9. I am in Congress. It is a little north of Wickenburg. If you ever in my neck of the woods I would happly let you do my chores!!

10. What one piece of advice do you wish you'd had before you started?- Not sure.....This is going to require some thought.

Phew....too much thinking for 1 post.

Oops I forgot about the 2 chicks on my desk. Chicken count is 39.

 

[annekaelber]

Quote:
I'm always tickled to hear we're not alone in this non-traditional lifestyle. Sometimes, it can feel that way! *grin* Thanks for the welcome. I'm really enjoying the learning, though it's really challenging to go slow! I keep seeing all these beautiful fowl up for grabs and it's so tempting.... but we're just not prepared. Especially since our 7month old lab pup proudly brought in a pigeon the other day. We definitely need to plan this up right, to protect the chickens!

I'm really looking forward to interacting with you all in the coming months as we plan, design and hopefully build our coop/run.

Anne.

 

[pimachickens]

Glad to hear I am on the right track. I saturated the places I couldn't caulk with Orange Guard, and will continue to do that frequently. I'm also going to hit the feed stores tomorrow to find DE to put down. Hopefully with the eradication of the masses today, the continual spraying, and the DE, I can get them gone. AzBootsie, I'm so glad you didn't find anything in your cracks and crevices (although I am jealous

).

Anne:
1. My coop and run are about 35 ft away from the house. The location was determined by where it would look the least silly.
2. My coop is 3.5' deep by 6.5' long. It is a raised coop, so there is the same floor space underneath for shade, with an additional attached run that is a 10'x15'x8' triangle.
3. I have 2 hens. I have 1 nest box, but they prefer to lay in a divot in the dirt that they carved themselves under the coop where it is very difficult for me to reach.
4. I clean the poop from under the roost bar every day or 2, and rake out the run every 2 weeks.
5. Yes.
6. Straw.
7. Dirt (and the straw that they kick out from up above).
8. I am halfway thru my 3rd 50lb bag of feed since I started keeping chickens last August. Although I do feed ALOT of kitchen scraps.
9. I am in Tucson.
10. Best advice - CAULK ALL YOUR CREVICES!!!!

As for the lifestyle...to each ther own.

 

[annekaelber]

Quote:
I've also seen (and purchased) DE at Home Depot, in the pest control department. Hope that helps.

Thanks to all so far on their answers to my many questions!

Anne.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

pimachickens, I forgot to tell you about the experience of a fellow BYCer from a very remote area of Australia. We communicated back and forth for a couple months last year discussing his horrific tick infestation (it sounded much worse than mine). He couldn't get Orange Guard there and so together we came up with the idea of spraying with linseed oil. It worked! Oh, and O.K. Feeds on Ft. Lowell & Dodge has DE at a very decent price for a 50 lb. bag.

annekaelber, Good for you for doing your research before getting birds. Here are my responses to your questions:

1. At it's closest point, my coop is ~15' from my bedroom. I like that because any commotion at all over night would never escape the attention of our ever vigilant dog.

2. My coop is 4' X 10' and the run is 4' X 40'. That gives a total of 200 sq. ft. of ground space, or 25 sq.'/bird.

3. I have only two nest boxes for 8 birds. I have 6 laying right now and they sometimes get stacked up waiting for an open box, but it's mostly sufficient. I seem to recall that the recommended ratio is 1 box: 4 birds.

4. I scrape off the roost and rake the dirt floor about every other day. That takes about 2-3 minutes total. I rake the run every couple months or so. Every four months I do a complete cleaning of the coop where I take out all the pine shavings, sweep up everything and spray it down with a power sprayer. All of this might sound a bit excessive and it most likely is excessive. I'm a bit of a fanatic about keeping it clean because I live in the center of the city and I'd like to keep the peace with my neighbors. If you were blindfolded and standing in front of my coop, you'd never know I have chickens.

5. I collect eggs daily.

6. My coop floor is dirt, covered with sand. There is an elevated portion of the coop that is covered with about 6" of pine shavings.

7. My run is just dirt. However, in Nov. I lay down sod for a large section of it. The sod lasted into July this year, with a small wire-covered patch still clinging to life.

8. Last year I used about 100-125 lbs. of feed for the six chickens I had. My birds are very spoiled though, they get lots of vegetables and greens and bugs from the garden and they free range on most days. They also get access to a bin of finished compost every few weeks. Feed consumption during the summer is extremely low.

9. I live in Tucson. I would say though, that once the coop and run are built and your chickens are set up, upkeep is easy and doesn't require any great strength or stamina. I probably don't spend much more than 5-10 min. a day providing essential services for them. That includes checking the auto feeders and waterers, collecting eggs, and raking the coop floor. About once every couple weeks I inspect the birds for external parasites and that takes a bit more time. The major quarterly clean-out of the coop generally takes about an hour.

10. I would have built my roosts to limit tick access and caulked the nearby cracks and crevices.

 

[squeakyballs]

annekaelber

I bet you a brazilian dollars that the bag of DE that you bought at Home Depot is POOL GRADE. Don't use that crap around your chickens!

It HAS to say "Codex Food Chemical Grade" on the package. The "Food Grade" can be eaten as a dietary supplement and is completely safe (except for the dust, it's never good to breathe dust).

The "Pool Grade" has been treated with chemicals and heat. The heat changes it into crystalline silica. That stuff is nasty and causes cancer. Aside from that, there aren't as many regulations when it comes to Pool Grade. It is more likely to be contaminated with heavy metals.

ALSO the retards that work at Home Depot will happily tell you that the Pool Grade DE is the same as the Food Grade DE. Do you really trust their opinion? Pool Grade DE should only be used in Pool Filters.

http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ingredient.php?ingred06=705472 (more about crystalline silica)
http://www.ghorganics.com/DiatomaceousEarth.html (more about DE)
http://absorbentproductsltd.wordpre...s-pool-grade-diatomaceous-earth-the-dl-on-de/ (even more about DE)

 

[squeakyballs]

A BRAZILIAN DOLLARS! I BET YOU IT!

 

[Mikey D]

Ya know folks...

This "answer 10 questions" thing is kinda cool. It is quite interesting to see "baseline" comparisons like this.

I wish I could answer 10 questions...