Arizona Chickens

[parentwarrior]

I was out in the garden collecting cucumbers for dinner and shot these. Light is fading so the pic isn't great, but you get the idea. All of these were mere flowers just a few days ago. The longest was about 14" long. We've been getting so many, I may finally have enough to ferment. We planted three varieties-- these are Japanese vining, the Armenians are just starting to form and the third (I can't remember what it was) died. I can only imagine how many we'd have if there were more pollinators. Thankfully, the carpenter bees have been picking up some of the slack from the honey bees. I was visiting BYCer TT! today and she gave me a Queen's Wreath and I think that will very much help next year in attracting bees.

Oh my gosh!!! That is so cool! I have to try that.

 

[kukupecpec]

Welcome to our AZ thread! There were a lot of Tucson people here, unfortunately, very few post anymore. I've read this entire thread and I can recall only two instances of chickens being stolen from AZ BYCers and neither of them were from Tucson. Having said that, I think I would be bit uncomfortable if passersby could see my chickens. Even then, I think that having stray dogs and coyotes being able to see them from the road would be much worse than people seeing them. My neighbors at the end of the block once had a large flock of free-ranging chickens that would venture into their front yard were they were visible and even occasionally cross the road. They lasted less than a year before the last one was carried off by a coyote. Although, I have my doubts that they even locked them up at night and many may have been lost then. FWIW, I live in the center of town just east of Reid Park.

It's a shame there aren't more tucsonians on here. I would love to see some other Tucson birds! I've been thinking about walking my chickens over at Hobo Park, and now I imagine a flock of Tucsonian BYCers with their birds on leashes! Haha what a sight! We could change it to the chicken park Bwahaha

Well we don't really have a front yard so no issue there, and we don't have TONS of people walking around, but we do have the daily homeless from over on Hobo Park and the neighbors across the street are always having parties on their porch. We only let them out when we are home, and I usually check on them every couple of hours, or if they are making lots of noise. I'm more afraid of the stray cat we've seen around, but we definitely don't have any coyotes or wild animals besides the huge population of pigeon things the neighbors feed so they never leave. Our little plot is super tiny, so there isn't much room for them directly behind the house, we were thinking of putting up their new run off to the side so they'd be in the street view 24/7. I suppose I might lock the run during the day when we aren't home, but I'm glad to hear that chicken thieves are few and far between!
We are over on 22nd and 8th, just east of the 10.

 

[parentwarrior]

Here is a cool link on;
EGG BLOWING 101 & Egg Decorating instructions


http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2011/10/egg-blowing-101-and-how-to-decorate.html

 

[AnotherKim]

I'm in Tucson. I'm off of 22nd and Wilmot. I have a friend near you. She calls the park, Crack Park, lol. It's actually a nice park when it's not full of crack heads. We've met over there to let the kids play. The playground is is nice.

I don't have any chickens yet. I'm saving up for them and a couple of goats. I've checked out the feed store on Country Club.My next stop is the new store off of Wrightstown. I'm bummed that 2barO isn't there anymore. We always got out goat and rabbit feed from them.

Gallo, those cucumbers are amazing. Do you have any seeds you want to get rid of. I'll trade some sourdough starter or a Kombucha scoby for them, lol. No. Really. I will.

 

[kevs-chickadees]

Gallo, what's a queens wreath? Info, info, info, pictures?

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Gallo, what's a queens wreath? Info, info, info, pictures?

The Queen's Wreath is a vining plant with tons of little pink flowers all over it. The flowers resemble a pea plant but really attract bees like nothing I've ever seen. We used to have one at my old house but I was never able to propagate one from seed for some reason and I've never been able to find one at the nursery when I've looked. For some reason TT! has them volunteering all over her yard. Here's one on the campus of ASU (not my pic):

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Gallo, those cucumbers are amazing. Do you have any seeds you want to get rid of. I'll trade some sourdough starter or a Kombucha scoby for them, lol. No. Really. I will.

Thanks! I'll definitely have some seeds very soon. I'm letting a couple go for that purpose. I'll put them in the BYC AZ Seed Box.

 

[AZKat]

Hey, I know its a long shot, but does anyone here have the contact info for a good drywall installer? I've still got a hole in my ceiling, and the guy my plumber recommended isn't answering his phone. If anyone has a lead, please shoot me a PM.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

wow gallo, please tell me how you built that - i NEED one!! also, once the structure is built what location should plants be placed for it to vine over top like that. my cukes are started inside from seed til i get them outside (soon i hope)

Well, it's a little complicated.

But since you asked.... It started with a hole in the ground.







I lined that with concrete blocks (just laid in place and filled with dirt and tamped down tightly).




I lined that hole with fish-safe EPDM pond liner, filled it with water (about 670 gallons) and then built the frame for the grow bed.








After I assembled everything on the frame and lined the grow bed with another pond liner, I filled it with about a ton or so of lava rock and Salt River rock.





I have water pumped up from the bottom tank into the grow bed where it flows to a stand-pipe at the end and back down into the bottom tank. I have about 75 tilapia and some 20-odd feeder gold fish living below. The waste they produce provides the nutrients for the plants.






I wanted to moderate the temperatures for the whole system, so I built a hoop-house greenhouse around it (12' X 20') using galvanized fencing top-rail that you can get from home depot.



Temporarily, I covered the whole thing with scraps of shade cloth I had laying around.





That's all the pictures I have of it. The last one there is was probably taken back in May (?). I ended up putting three cross braces between the last three hoops and laid panels of concrete re-mesh on top to support everything. It looks a lot nicer now, I'll post pics as soon as we discover what became of the camera usb cord. (the cukes pic was taken with my wife's phone).

So, that was a long way to say that the cukes now grow from the grow bed directly up onto the platform above. If anyone is interested, here is a great web site that explains hoop house construction. You can find these easy to follow plans on that site to make one just like mine.

 

[Bobby Basham]

AnotherKim, I'm just below you down at Wilmot, just below Valencia. Between Craycroft and Wilmot, they have those Habitat homes going up right now, just east in that big area east of TTT truck stop. My area is slighlty older (2006) and is on the south border of the Base. Going down Wilmot from Valencia (just east of the Pima Museum) before hitting the Chevron/I-10 ramps, all those newer houses on the right are part of Canterbury Ranch.

It is so nice getting away from downtown, though I now live in a concrete jungle with an HOA. I, like you, have no babies yet, but plan on doing my coop plans this fall, and get my fuzzy butts in the spring. That actual design is more time consuming than the actual build...I know my way around power tools very well. I can't match the creations that many of you have built, and they are truly awesome, some of you have gone all-out, and haven't left a stone unturned...it's just mind boggleing, but I have to take into consideration the 5-foot wall where any structures cannot be seen from the street or the neighbors....yeah, right. I'm 5'8" and can stand at my neighbors' walls on each side and carry on a conversation. How much clearance does that leave me.

I think I got some evil neighbors next door. It's not their house, and the original neighbor (Dave) disappeared all of a sudden. It's not like him to leave the neighborhood without notifying the rest of us. Anyhoo, there are some snooty-***** teenagers there that seem to show no respect. I had to yell at one of them when I was out trying to get my mail and two ankle biters ran out and tried to attack me. I could have punted them over the wall with no problem, that's how close they were. I yelled at her to please restrain her dogs and keep them leashed. She turned her back to me, not even calling her dogs while still on her cell phone, and simply walked away. I can't stand disrespectful kids and really wanted to put my foot up her ***** right then. She probably told her parents or Baby Daddy, and they don't speak to me at all. No love loss here. Enough of that, and I got some good, nosey neighbors who can tell me what's going on over there.

And now that I think about it, I could probably expand my potential run to about 12' x 40'. Just wrap some of that cloth tape/whatever around my side gate so that the HOA (Home Owners Assassination) can't see my chain-link run from the street. I WILL HAVE MY GIRLS!

The other issue that I have is that, with the two constantly yapping ankle-biters on the left, the encessant barking/howling Pitbull on the right, and another yapping Palmeranian adjacent....is that noise gonna stress my girls and stop/keep them from laying? I'm thinking about planting some trees/tall shrubs next to the wall in order that the Pitbull can't see anything when he stands on his planter box, with paws and jaws hanging over my side.

How would you feel if you were a chicken having to look at that every day? I think I may have to put some of that cloth tape (I don't know the proper name) on the right end of the run so that they can't see the dog, and the dog can't see them. Maybe start some grape vines to cover that end of the run where they will get some shade, being hidden from view, and reap the grape harvest goodies at the same time.

I think it's been posted before, but I have some preliminary plans drawn, not to scale, to include some planter boxes (on all four sides) and some extra amenities not shown. It will surely be a palace/paradise, The list will be long as far as coop, run materiall, branches and dust bowls, First-Aid, treats...on and on and on. Ooops, I forgot the coop! Anyhoo, I want to get the run and planter boxes fortified first, then work my way inward. The planter boxes could end up being huge, surrounding all for sides, with hardware ware cloth running from the inside or the run all the way out underneath the boxes. I'm now thinking of doing chainlink on the top as well...not bird netting or other light material unless I use it an additional screening/netting to keep out the wild birds.

I have read all the 3,000+ pages in this forum. Call me anal, but I like to do that, considering Internet etiquette. On top of having chickens comes the issue of gardening. I think both go well together. How neat, growing food for you and your babies. I have an old coot two houses down (actually he's a nice guy and I'm just poking fun, maybe late 60's) who has done some marvelous things to his back yard, and I will solicit his help. He laid a nice brick walkway around the side of his house, very nice. How can you push a wheel barrow when you got all that pink gravel going along the path to your back yard?--BB

Bobby Basham
Tucson, Arizona



This is my house/neighborhood. Not a blade of grass to be found.