Arizona Chickens

[Mikey D]

Quote: I figured ya'll knew anyway...

 

[Novaleigh]

I read in a chickens magazine that feeding chickens a higher amount of protein during hot weather helps keep them laying eggs. Not sure if it is true...but I still get egg

s daily from my 3 girls! I give them layer feed (18%) and flock raiser (22%) that they have full access too all the time, so they may choose what they want. How is everyone elses egg endeavors going?

 

[itsredcandy]

1. Not sure if I would put those tiny eggs under a full-sized chicken to hatch with flippin' around...I got silkies for part of that reason but none broody yet, they are just laying...
2. No clue, I have not hatched any since March and have 5 roos to be food when my chef son-in-law comes to butcher in a few days...starting to incubate more...but my breeding pen has 6 hens 2 roos that I hope are fertile....due to hatch in about 3 days and sold..we'll see....we get 4 to 6 eggs per day...
3. I am raising for meat at a point, but too many get really stinky...no pics yet.
4. You probably need less space as I am downsizing ducks, chickens, turkeys, etc., due to food cost. Food for quail is minimal with 13 right now. We have raised 4 x 2 (3 pens right now) and the 8 live comfortably in there...but need to clean the pen...now off to set more quail eggs...sheesh me!

Awesome, thanks for the reply. What kind of Qual do you have?

 

[itsredcandy]

This is Dale.




Dale tends to have a rather disapproving, rather disdainful look.....



Baby chick stink-eye??

Dale is just too cute

 

[itsredcandy]

Please tell me im not the only one that wants to make a chicken album. Like the chicken soup for the soul books that make you feel good stories . So when im having a bad day I can just relax and look at all the babies pictures and say AWWW ! Its sure to brighten my bad days

With all our cute pictures we all have I think we should all make one and thats a project your kids would love to help with ! JUST SAYIN

Fantastic idea. I'd likely buy that book.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

My experience with black widows is different; I had widows do a number on several of my silkies last summer. Once I rid the coop of them I had no more problems. In general, I don;t think DE is good for much except drying things out, and Sweet PDZ does a better job. It makes no insecticidal claims.

Are you saying that black widows killed your silkies? I'm just wondering how that might happen. Where were they bitten? What were the symptoms? I'm very curious.

Black Widow stuff: Orange oil....can't remember the name of the product. I oil their roosts and spritz corners with a little essential orange oil dilluted in a carrier oil. Heard it was helpful for the poultry ticks also. Was it Gallo that posted the information?? Anyway I learned it somewhere here on BYC. It smells good also.

O.K. so, I'll admit I have a bias against killing spiders.

However, Orange Guard (found at Ace Hardware) would kill on contact. When I was purging ticks from the coop I removed all the spiders I could before spraying the orange guard. The ones I couldn't get to died instantly when sprayed.

 

[itsredcandy]

So Tammy & I go out to let out the cluckers and feed them some corn on the cob.

When sallying through the coop / run I noticed an egg on the shelf - a tad bit small and quite lighter colored then all the rest!

We think someone started laying.

Culprits could be

GSL (possibility because I found a feather of theirs in the nest box but they haven't reddened up fully yet)

Wellsomer (prolly not 'cause it was way too light but they have reddened up pretty fully now)

App Spitz (prolly not cause I don't think they are ready)

Silkie/cochin cross (prolly not cause she is way too small and the egg was too large for her)

No one is squatting yet so one of my older girls cold have just gotten lazy in the location and pigment department.

We'll have to see over the next couple of days...

One of the two girls you ordered for me in January laid her first egg yesterday. We got our first white egg...yippy. Pictures coming soon.

 

[itsredcandy]

All of a sudden I am not getting the postings sent to my email!

AAKKKK Crisis

 

[itsredcandy]

The wiffee just got back from Hobby Lobby on Greenfield and US-60 and a bunch of their chicken decorations are on clearance. I'll call the stores now to let them know the word is out and there will be a bunch of chicken freaks screaming crazily through their stores buying up all the rest.

My wife decorated our kitchen with a chicken theme.

Thanks for posting...HOWEVER>..!!!!! ITS SUNDAY and they are closed GRRR

 

[itsredcandy]

Speaking of new layers, my almost 18 wk BRs are both squatting and look like this

1 has left feathers in nesting box and I saw 1 eating the crushed egg shell. I know it's early, but it's gonna be soon, right? Can they look like this forever before starting laying?

I have one that has looked like this for a while now and she's 25 weeks and not laying yet. She started squatting this weekend, so it'll be soon.