Arizona Chickens

[pastrymama]

All pastrymama's fault! She "twisted my arm" as I wasn't going to get any new chicks. But they are just so adorable. The girls at work said they look like poodles! lol They want me to bring them to work.

She's so persuasive! I feared I couldn't meet her without walking away with a few ducks.

oh sure, blame me!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you know you have all be busting for some sweet little silkies

and gallo, please tell me you pulled the ducklings out of the seed box that i snuck in there for you. otherwise,

it's been 2 months!

and it seems my incubator and broodies have gone crazy once again. i will have the following hatching over the next month or so. if someone wants something, you know how to find me.
basque
splash bantam cochins
runner ducks
bbs silkies

i somehow blame laree for all this(only because she is not reading this!)

 

[Mama Hen Chris]

All pastrymama's fault! She "twisted my arm" as I wasn't going to get any new chicks. But they are just so adorable. The girls at work said they look like poodles! lol They want me to bring them to work.

oh sure, blame me!!!!!!!!!!!!!! you know you have all be busting for some sweet little silkies

and gallo, please tell me you pulled the ducklings out of the seed box that i snuck in there for you. otherwise,

it's been 2 months!

and it seems my incubator and broodies have gone crazy once again. i will have the following hatching over the next month or so. if someone wants something, you know how to find me.
basque
splash bantam cochins
runner ducks
bbs silkies

i somehow blame laree for all this(only because she is not reading this!)

Thanks for twisting my arm. I love these little fuzzies. I already want more!!


Here are a few pics of the peach faced lovebirds I was telling you and Laree about:

 

[Arizonachicken]

We have those preached faced love birds here,too. Apparently they're not native...more of pets that were released/escaped. Congrats on the silkies!

 

[Mama Hen Chris]

We have those preached faced love birds here,too. Apparently they're not native...more of pets that were released/escaped. Congrats on the silkies!

Thanks Petra. I am enjoying them very much. They are beginning to be less skiddish as I have been enticing them with mealworms.

I found a site that you can add a location to where you saw them. http://mirror-pole.com/maps/maps_test_2/peach-face_map/index.html

http://www.birdchannel.com/bird-magazines/bird-talk/2009-february/peach-faced-lovebirds.aspx

 

[rlshound]

Hello Arizona Chickens,

We are from maine where we had a big coop and raised meat and laying birds. We loved the whole experience and would like to do that here. We live in Mesa and have a small tract home whose lot is 65 x 150. Are there any zoning restrictions or laws pertaining to chickens?

Thanks for putting this website together.

Paul

 

[Mama Hen Chris]

Hello Arizona Chickens,

We are from maine where we had a big coop and raised meat and laying birds. We loved the whole experience and would like to do that here. We live in Mesa and have a small tract home whose lot is 65 x 150. Are there any zoning restrictions or laws pertaining to chickens?

Thanks for putting this website together.

Paul

Welcome to our "family". You will enjoy everyone here. I am sure someone can assist you with the restrictions.

 

[Demosthine]

Good job on moving forward with coop construction. Are you asking for input? It seems so, so I will offer my thoughts. I see you are concerned about the comfort of your ladies, but I would forego the heater. Even the folks in Alaska advocate not using a heater. I think it could be especially troublesome in a coop the size you are building. My girls seem happiest on the coldest days and I wouldn't deprive them of that. Growing up in northern MI where it gets seriously cold, we never heated our coop. Start watching the coop threads, it's that time of year where you'll begin to see all sorts of reports of coops burning down because they were heated. It happens every year in the fall. I'm not saying that will happen in your case, but you should be aware of the very real possibility.

The fan sounds like a good idea and I may even add one next summer.

The coops that have inspired you and Mrs. Demosthine are very cute, but probably not the best for our climate, at least not without some tweaking. I would seriously think about ways to make entire walls ventilated. If there is not enough air exchange inside, they may not want to go inside to use it. Situating the coop in the shade will help, but there will still be heat and moisture build-up from their bodies and respiration. Perhaps a fan would help with that, but I think it's best that air exchange can happen very efficiently and passively as well. These thoughts are just my 2 cents and probably worth that too.

You made some excellent points on the fire issue, which is why I was looking at the induction panel type heaters. They are supposedly to be completely safe for situations like this, since they are especially safe for use in the brooders for the chicks. I hadn't heard that they do really, really well in winter, though, until you mentioned it. I'll leave out the heater idea for now.

The coop will be sitting on my covered patio, with no direct sun at all and two ceiling fans on the porch. In regards to the ventilation, it should have plenty of that when I'm done. I was going to put the fan in the bell tower as an intake, so it would pull air from outside down in to the coop and push the warmer air out the bottom windows. I think Harbor Freight had some solar powered ones a few months ago. There will be two windows on the front, along with the 12"x18" open door. There will be two along the side above the nesting boxes, too. The coop will also be sitting directly in front of a large window and I would like to design the back wall so that I can open the window and allow the AC from my house to flow in to the coop during the extreme parts of summer. That would mostly be during the night, though, since they'll be out free-ranging all day.

The way my wife is taking to the girls, I'm thinking I also need to design it so that she can open the window blinds and be able to see in to the coop as well. I think she'll get a kick out of being able to watch them from inside the house. It is in a great position for her to watch them from our dinner table, too. I haven't quite figured out that back wall yet, but it's on my list today. The girls are quickly outgrowing their little Rubbermaid container, I need to get them in the coop by the end of Wednesday. It'll just be chicken wire or hardware cloth wrapping it for now, until I can do the detail work for the wall coverings.

Just for reference, here are two items I've leaned towards after a few quick searches. The Dog Palace Solar Powered Fan is about the right size for fitting in the bell tower perfectly. I might have to take the fan out of the rectangular mount so it'll be a smaller square mount, but that may be too small. I want to get actual dimensions of the fan and output before I commit. I have a few months before summer, though. For the heater, I was thinking something like the Hound Heater would work well. It mounts securely, but safely inside and has a very wide range of thermal switch temperatures. I can mount the solar panel on the patio roof directly above the coop and run the cable down about two feet in to the peak of the coop's roof.

 

[City farm]

Welcome to our "family". You will enjoy everyone here.  I am sure someone can assist you with the restrictions.

Welcome to BYC!!!
You will find answers for just about everything chick related...
Keep us all posted on your progress..
Enjoy!!

 

[City farm]

Hello Arizona Chickens,

We are from maine where we had a big coop and raised meat and laying birds. We loved the whole experience and would like to do that here. We live in Mesa and have a small tract home whose lot is 65 x 150. Are there any zoning restrictions or laws pertaining to chickens?

Thanks for putting this website together.

Paul

can't you tell im a newbie... You would think I could hit the right button
by now...

Welcome Paul to BYC!!!!
The best forum for chick info... Plus the above quote..

 

[MagicChicken]

Quote:
If you artificially heat or cool the coop the chickens will never acclimate to the climate where you are. Rapid temperature changes (as in walking into/out of a heated/cooled coop) are stressful for them. If you want a weak flock that will always require heating and cooling, go for it. If you want to develop a healthy flock acclimated to YOUR climate, then do your birds a favor and let them acclimate. When it's cold they grow more insulating feathers. Those same feathers help protect them from the summer heat. You want healthy birds in good condition, not weak birds that can't handle the local climate.

They do need lots of shade, good ventilation, a place to get out of the wind and rain, and lots of water in the summer. Healthy birds don't need furnaces or air conditioning.