Arizona Chickens

I had that question here a couple of months into it.

The asymetric lump on their neck...

Yeah! It's so freaky if you don't know about it. What? My chicken has this stomach-like thing used to hold food outside of the body cavity?
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LMS, As Gallo says, X2.. He is a man of great wisdom when it comes to chickens in the desert.. And, ask lots of questions.. All of the newbies here ask lots of questions.. A lot of the old pros ask a lot of questions too.. You will get a few snickers, but you will get a lot of help also.. This group is great about answering.. Don't wait.. Get started as soon as you can.. You'll miss a lot of good chicken time if you wait... Will
 
LMS, I'm less than 2 months into being a chicken mama and learning quickly. Just go for it. This group has been great to help answer questions, especially about the AZ heat, scorpions and other local issues and tips.

Lucy is back outside and with the other 2 older girls again! I kept them separated yesterday after Goldie attacked her. They roosted together last night and appear to have worked everything out. It looks like along with surviving a scorpion sting, Lucy lost her place in the pecking order. Poor girl has been through a lot, but she's doing great.
 
Mama Hen Chris, that's interesting that Gretchen's babies went to roost with her and the big girls. My brooded babies always remained behind in the tractor-brooder when their mamas left.

Oh Will, you're so kind. I only hope to live long enough to have as much experience raising chickens in the desert as you do.

udubchick, that's great that Lucy rebounded so quickly from that scorpion! What a lucky bird, I'm glad to hear she's doing better.
 
Oh, another interesting and cautionary story. A couple days ago a new BYC member from AZ posted about finding poultry ticks in their coop. It reminded me that I hadn't searched my coop for parasites in over a month. I went out and right there in plain sight was an adult tick! I didn't find any others, so hopefully I nabbed it before it could reproduce. Check your coops at sunset tonight!
 
Yall would not believe what happened this morning!! My son come to our room, crying! He said there was scritching in his ear (his words). He said there feels like something inside his ear! So we tilted his head sideways and poured some of my saline contact solution down his ear canal. SURE ENOUGH!!! A beetle comes crawling out, gasping for air!!
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My poor son! He was such a trooper, bless his little heart.
yuck. This mom woulda flipped out
 
Thanks for all the help so far! I definitely appreciate the tips on covering the run. Now to look into "cleaning" up the soil where the oleander is soon to be history.
Pimachickens, I'm in Tucson too. Is there still a city chicken coop tour around here? I've found links to them from past years, but couldn't find anything this year.

I have 6 Oleanders in my yard. The girls love to hang under them and don't try eating them.
 
There seem to be a lot of new, totally chicken naive new members, I just read 2 almost identical new threads in the emergency section.
"What's wrong with my hen. She wont come out of the nesting box, is puffed up, cranky and just growls at me......." I have been giggling for the past 30 minutes. I love it!!! Now that kind of emergency I can help with!!
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No offense intended to any new chicken owner.....
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I am wishing one of my girls would get this way. I am planning to find and tuck a few eggs under her. Thinking quail and chicken. Can you put quail eggs under a broody hen? I am thinking the first broody i will get is an EE. She likes to lay in the nest but doens't stay there. I am thinking she is prep'ing
 
The Tucson coup tour was a joint venture between the Food Conspiracy and the Tucson Community Food Bank. It went on hiatus in 2010 when a dog got into the Food Bank's chicken enclosure and killed all their birds. It was on again in 2011 and should also be on for 2012. They usually have it in early December. I talked last year with the organizer at the Food Conspiracy and he said all of the tours were huge hits and sold out tickets within days. The Food Bank is really keen on these events too; they're trying to get as many people raising chickens as they can. I'll post when I hear anything definitive about the next tour. We went on the 2011 tour--it was fun and interesting (and at times a bit depressing).

I went on the first tour, in May 2009. We had to quit half-way through the tour because it was too darned hot. December is a much better time of year! The coops ran the gamut from a tiny chicken tractor thingy to a huge enclosed coop/run built around a large tree. Everyone had things they would change about their setup if they had to it again. It was a good reminder that no design is perfect. One setup that impressed me in a "don't want to go there" way had a concrete slab for the entire run. The guy said he had to clean it every day, sometimes more often. Ummm... no thanks... Fortunately all the folks with dirt runs had much more realistic time frames for cleaning (every couple of weeks to every few months). That sounded reasonable, and made me much more willing to try chickens.

Wish I'd learned this on the tour but I didn't, so i'll throw it in here: Now that I have chickens, I would never again use a corrugated metal roof on the coop without some serious insulation. That metal roof may have been free (reclaimed roofing panels) but it drips condensation all over the coop in the winter and heats like an oven in the summer. Not quite so bad now that I put the semi-permanent shade cloth structure over the top of it, but still... next time I'll use wood and rolled roofing or shingles. Live and learn.
 

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