Arizona Chickens

[MaddBaggins]

The flock has been cooping up on their own all week now! Good little girls and boy. I've discovered they really like bananas with their salad and strawberries. My buddy, who is taking half of them, is still trying to get his coop done. Looks like next weekend before he can take them. They'll be 7 weeks then.

For today, we'll see how they like the crappy weather thats coming.

 

[Demosthine]

The flock has been cooping up on their own all week now! Good little girls and boy. I've discovered they really like bananas with their salad and strawberries. My buddy, who is taking half of them, is still trying to get his coop done. Looks like next weekend before he can take them. They'll be 7 weeks then.

For today, we'll see how they like the crappy weather thats coming.

It's funny you've mentioned that. My Marans cooped up on their own last night. The older Silkies, though, still have no interest in it. They keep huddling in the corner under the coop. I may have to recheck my ramp leading to the coop. Maybe the raised pieces of wood are too far apart for them to walk up? The three Marans that are only about a three or four weeks old are flying up to the coop already. They sure seem to be growing faster than my Barred Rocks did.

Oh, and we only had a small pittance of rain so far in our area. We did leave at 0400 Hours this morning, so maybe the storm worked it's way up since then. No telling with this weather...

 

[Mama Hen Chris]

I found that my silkies had trouble going up the ramp to the coop. Light bulb went off!! I had some rubber shelf liner and tried that. I have it tucked under both ends of the ramp so I can remove and clean it. I put the girls on it at coop time and "pushed" them up the ramp. I did this a couple nights and they are pros at it now.

 

[LadyKotaDoria]

For those of you in the phoenix area.... WOW on this rain....that 'ol Murphy Mother Nature strikes again...as soon as I need to move about 20 growing chicks to the outside brooder, we get dumped on with blowing rain...I could have waited another day, but I figured we would surely not have another big front like last time... WRONG (-; Oh well, guess I know what I will be doing this weekend...de-flooding areas of my run and our yard low spots etc. I know we need the rain but does it all have to come at once??? I am so glad we waited to weed the desert landscaping areas...maybe next weekend any new sprouts will be ready for pulling up...love those orange daisy like flowers though! Guess desert beggars can't be choosers when it comes to getting precipitation!

Years ago in collage I did research of rain in AZ. for max water retention/detention, drainage, flow, etcetera. Sadly I forgot 95%. I do remember that this is really normal for the desert. Feast and famine. We have seeds that will wait 100+ yrs for that rain. Question: what is this, greenhouse do to us, going to do to the cycle of rain/drought? The butterfly HAS fapped his wings. Did you know 400 yrs ago most of Arizona was tall grass land. Tuscon had a massive forest of tree. Sage brush is not native to this continent, was a garden plant in Spain.

 

[Rezia]

It was raining hard in Gold Canyon! I'm glad the chickies aren't ready to go into the coop yet! I'd feel bad for them. The coop is nearly done! I'll post pictures as soon as I can. We have the door up, and the nestboxes!
Rezia

 

[City farm]

I've got a problem. Wonder if any of you have any ideas on how to stop this destructive behavior-it's driving me nuts!
I have five hens. My Leghorn died after tearing her vent badly laying an egg. Even though she was the smallest of all of them, she was the boss and the hens got along until she died. Since then the Barred Rock and Dominique have become bullies. They have pecked the feathers off the backs of my two EE's (to the point that they were bloody) and then started on my Buff Orphington. I separated the bullies from the EE's and BO and now one of the EE's is pecking the BO and the other EE. I'm at my wits end!
What could be causing this and How can I stop it? It seems like they're literally trying to eat each other!
Terri

They might need to have more room? Enough to run free & heal.. Or keep them separate them.. Same
with dogs, but it usually still does not work.. Keeping them separate is just for healing, not intergrating..
We have a neighbor that their room is the whole block.
They sleep in the trees.. I wondered about how he gets their eggs??
I hope this helps.. We are still learning. Let us know what works??

 

[Demosthine]

Our girls were definitely down and out with all this rain. Out of the coop and down in the mud, that is! They seem happy as a lark in this weather. I know our oleanders provide a great wind break, but man, do the girls seem happy today!

We got quite a bit of rain out here and have good puddles throughout our yard. By no means a flood, but a very good soak.

I hope the rest of you are surviving well, especially in the upper elevations. Stay warm, my friends.

 

[Mahonri]

Torrential rain here in East Central Phoenix and lots of hail or graple this morning at about 4AM with Thunder.

Chickens all seem to have survived it well. Only got 8 eggs out of 15 hens today.. 9 each, the previous two days.

One more day downtown for convention and then I can hopefully get back to normal.

 

[countrygirl74]

Rain here until about 2 or 3, then turned to snow. It came down heavy for a little while but then tapered off and is already melting off. Bummer... I was hoping for more snow but it seems to be a little too East again. The chickens were out a lot today - taking dust baths in the sprinkling rain, silly girls. The ducks, of course, loved it. Once it turned to snow, they pretty much stayed under their coop where it wasn't reaching, but I was surprised they were out as much as they were as it was windy and cold. Wind chill tonight is supposed to be 16. Brrr...

Edited to say that the sun is shining right now but the weather is still saying we could get a couple inches overnight... hmmm.

 

[MaddBaggins]

The rain was a fizzle in Tucson, at least at work (by the airport) and at home (eastside). Cold, blustery wind though. The chicks don't care.