Arizona Chickens

[squeakyballs]

naw, think fermented as in kim chee, sour pickles, saurkraut, buttermilk, yogurt, cheese, ect.

You're no fun.

 

[maryhysong]

Oh I also meant to say there is no such thing as too late in the season to plant a garden. I'm colder than you and I plant 12 months of the year. I especially recommend Elliot Coleman's books. Elliot gardens in Maine and eats fresh from his garden 12 months of the year; He has written several books about winter harvesting. Also check out the Master Gardeners manual http://ag.arizona.edu/pubs/garden/mg/index.html which has lists for your area of what to plant when. Not all of it is right for me but I just experiment and adjust as I go along. I also ignore all of the chemical recomendations in it. I am 100% organic.

 

[maryhysong]

You're no fun.

I just save the wine for me

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Quote: Flower is right on about the winter gardening. This is the best time of year for gardening in AZ, far better than sumer, IMO. In general, leafy greens and roots are grown in the winter here. Most things should have been started long ago, but it's never too late for some things. For things that germinate at higher temps start them inside.

You know, the deep liter method in AZ doesn't quite work like the DLM would in someplace like MI, at least for me. When I was growing up in MI, we would continuously add straw on to the upper layer of litter every couple weeks over the winter. The rotting of the litter generated heat which was probably appreciated on those wickedly cold winter nights. By spring time, the nearly 2' layer of litter was well on it's way to composting at the bottom levels near the dirt floor. On cold winter days, it would literally steam. During the summer, we cleaned the coop floor out weekly. Here in my AZ coop, the litter never maintains a high enough level of moisture to promote decomposition (although this might occur at certain times of the year if you had dirt floors). I keep about 6" of pine shavings in the elevated shelter area of my coop. I add more when the older stuff gets compressed or full of droppings. It's so bone dry in there that it just builds up over time. Very little decomposition happens, consequently little or no heat is generated. For me, that's a plus. By keeping it so dry, it's much less hospitable to a variety of pests and it smells infinitely better than wet chicken droppings. About three times a year I push it all out into a wheel barrow and use it to mix in with the compost. It really helps with making the compost easier to turn. I would also note that for much of the year, the chickens don't roost over this elevated section of coop and so every other day I rake up the droppings on the dirt floor section of the coop. Literally takes less than 2 minutes to scrape roosts and rake it all up. The best part of it all is that it's the starting point to a great garden.

 

[flower]

I just save the wine for me

Somehow I think that your and I have read the same books Maryhysong

> since I am still out in the Death Valley area at 23k feet elevation, it seems that I need to infuse my garden with a new crop of worms each season. With constant summer temperaturs of triple digits they dig in so deep that I can not longer find them. (I bet they cooked) I did start growing them but it was for use in the garden. Someday I'll be back in N Az at 5k feet elevation and the winters are cold enough to freeze the water in the chicken yard but the sun is hot enough during the summer to fry all life. So it is not just temperature that one must consider but closness to the sun .

 

[RoussoHomestead]

You're no fun.

Right?

Here I was thinking it meant I'd get to skip the "beer butt" step in that grilled chicken recipe. Drunk Chicken

 

[flower]

How are the chickens ? Did they learn to use their roosts yet ?

 

[Demosthine]

Quote:
Good points on the deep litter. I had forgotten to mention the extra microbes and keeping down the parasites. Reading from Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens this morning pointed out the wonders of the deep litter method. It sounds so wonderful, I want to find a way to make it work.

Although I live in an area with houses surrounded by brick walls, I am fortunate that my property was landscaped for some privacy. I have 15-20' oleanders surrounding the entire backyard fence line. When I run my sprinkler's my entire yard drops several degrees and it feel so much better. Amazingly, the couple of fans on the back porch manage to drop that temperature even more. Even so, my coop is placed along the wall of the house, under the shade of the porch. I would much rather it be always shaded and allow them to be accustomed to the cold than to have to fight the heat. As I always say, you can always put more clothes on, but you can only take so much off before it becomes indecent. Of course, that's a whole lot sooner for some of ugly folks...

This seems to hold especially true for the chickens. Look at the old stories and they are raising them in -30* weather with no more than insulating a proper coop. No heater and all the fancy stuff.

 

[flower]

Demosthine I did post earlier that you can never have enough shade in this area (SW) i use shade cloth stapled to frames but they are no match ofr the shade of vegetation which as we know has other benefits besides cooling and reducing CO2.

RossouHomestead Have your birdies been conditioned to roost up on their branches ? I looked at the Drunk Chicken recipe and book marked it for later since it looks promising (while I drink the wine).

 

[noodlegirl]

Brrrrr! It's a Cold one tonight! Just went out to close it up -a wee bit late- tonight. And I started thinking if I needed to put a cover over their playhouse tonight. We have an open coop, you see...


Last winter, if it dropped below 40, I would hang up a piece of heavy twill fabric inside their house creating a fourth wall. Tonight it's going to drop to 37 and I wouldn't be so worried, except one of my girls is molting. (And I'm selfish, as Sunday is my only sleep in day.)