Arizona Chickens

[Mama Hen Chris]

And on a semi-related note...

I passed the AEPA High School Math test!

Wahoo!

I am now Highly Qualified to teach HS math in Arizona!

Congrats..And you are highly qualified in Chicken Math as well.

 

[Mikey D]

Quote:
Very cool idea!

 

[MagicChicken]

Fuzzybird, it looks like a gopher snake. Definitely one of the good ones.

We were walking out of the front door when DH gave a yelp and a leap side ways and this is what he almost stepped on! This beautiful guy hist and puffed and coiled up and shook his tail, trying to make us think he was a big bad Rattler! I really do wonder what kind of snake he is? A racer? Corn snake? We had a black and white King snake we caught and let go just before winter. Love these good snakes. We know they keep away the rattlers.

 

[AZKat]

Mikey: Congratulations!

Sonoran Silkies: That is an awesome idea. For something like that, I'd go with beans, or something that grows on a vine, maybe with sunflowers to shade the bed.
As a fun chicken treat, you might think about planting wheat. In December, I planted some Pima Club wheat just for fun, and it actually looked really pretty as it was growing.

 

[pimachickens]

Quote:

Sonoran Silkies, that is a fantastic idea! I think I'm going to copy that (because I don't have enough projects in progress already!).

Purslane gets my vote for what to plant. It is low, dense, thrives in our climate, and the chickens love it. Thanks for the great idea.

 

[In2Ice]

I had a Gopher snake about 25 years ago as a pet. She was very sweet and docile and loved being held.

 

[Mahonri]

Can all my AZ peeps help me?

The Easter Hatch has a cutest chic pics contest.

Will you all go vote for the one you think is cutest-----> HERE?

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

I passed the AEPA High School Math test!

Wahoo!

I am now Highly Qualified to teach HS math in Arizona!

Congratulations Mikey! That's a great achievement.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Quote:
I love the idea of living roofs! When I was very young my grandmother showed me a picture of a house she lived in as a child that had a sod roof and I've been fascinated ever since. With a weird coincidence, TT! emailed me last week to bounce some ideas around for a living roof coop. I think it'd be especially hard in our climate, but I think it could be done if the coop got shade in the hottest parts of the day, say from 11am to 4pm. I agree that plant selection would be very important. I like the idea of purslane! I think that the biggest problem might be keeping chickens off the roof. The coop by Liz Jenkins in the link is BYC member Franklinchickens and from one of her last posts she said they were removing the living roof and replacing it with cedar shingles because they couldn't keep the chickens off. I've always admired that coop, especially the window she has from her home office that looks directly into her coop.

I have something somewhat similar on top of a tortoise burrow. I made it last fall and planted it with cuttings from very drought tolerant succulents and cacti I could gather from around the yard. It suffered from lack of watering over the winter, but it's hanging in there. It's made with a single layer of concrete blocks with a plywood cap, a layer of plastic, rocks around the edge and about 8" of soil on top. It's in the shade of a mesquite tree and faces east so it's fairly protected and only gets morning sun. We'll see how it fares in the summer heat. I had to work wire in around it to keep the chickens out. They just love the succulents. Not exactly a living roof coop, but a shorter, more compact facsimile.

 

[Fuzzybird]

Did anyone notice my Silky chick picture? I was hoping some Silky expert could tell me what color this chick will be? Cotton never hatched this color before and it is a purebred Silky. Cotton is white and Roo is Tumbleweed the Partridge. She had two chicks like this.