Arizona Chickens

[MaddBaggins]

People say they start slowing down after their 3rd year, but if they were bred well, and taken care of well, they can go longer. My sister has one that is 7 years old and still producing well for her. I believe in the commercial industry, they kill them after 2 years and start over.

Not as long as I would have hoped, but a better answer than I expected.

 

[Demosthine]

As with most things, I believe it'll depend largely on how much they are allowed to live "naturally." I would expect a free range chicken that is not exposed to artificial light to lay much longer than one who is cooped (even in a large coop) or is manipulated by lights to simulate summer daylight hours. Yes, this may increase your daily production rate, but at what cost to the health of the bird or nutritional value of the egg? If, like CountryGirl mentioned, you're going to slaughter them at first molt, then yes, daily rates matter.

Like the old nursery rhyme goes, slow and steady wins the race...

 

[Demosthine]

As with most things, I believe it'll depend largely on how much they are allowed to live "naturally." I would expect a free range chicken that is not exposed to artificial light to lay much longer than one who is cooped (even in a large coop) or is manipulated by lights to simulate summer daylight hours. Yes, this may increase your daily production rate, but at what cost to the health of the bird or nutritional value of the egg? If, like CountryGirl mentioned, you're going to slaughter them at first molt, then yes, daily rates matter.

Like the old nursery rhyme goes, slow and steady wins the race...

 

[MaddBaggins]

As with most things, I believe it'll depend largely on how much they are allowed to live "naturally." I would expect a free range chicken that is not exposed to artificial light to lay much longer than one who is cooped (even in a large coop) or is manipulated by lights to simulate summer daylight hours. Yes, this may increase your daily production rate, but at what cost to the health of the bird or nutritional value of the egg? If, like CountryGirl mentioned, you're going to slaughter them at first molt, then yes, daily rates matter.

Like the old nursery rhyme goes, slow and steady wins the race...

Slaughtering at first molt seems pretty wrong to me. I hope to give them a long and happy life.
If it was more a matter of survival, for us, I would keep a roo and keep the flock going for productivity and meat. Such is not the case.

 

[countrygirl74]

As with most things, I believe it'll depend largely on how much they are allowed to live "naturally." I would expect a free range chicken that is not exposed to artificial light to lay much longer than one who is cooped (even in a large coop) or is manipulated by lights to simulate summer daylight hours. Yes, this may increase your daily production rate, but at what cost to the health of the bird or nutritional value of the egg? If, like CountryGirl mentioned, you're going to slaughter them at first molt, then yes, daily rates matter.

Like the old nursery rhyme goes, slow and steady wins the race...

We raise ours naturally and I hope they live long, healthy lives!! I don't know that I would ever even be able to cull my girls - it was hard enough to do the roosters we didn't even want. That's one reason I've been building up my flock, so that when some aren't laying, I still have others that might keep going (like during winter, molts, etc.), as we go through a lot of eggs around here!

 

[countrygirl74]

Just wanted to share....


My daughter with her duck Ava

 

[countrygirl74]

I did and they were confused as well. S/he was singing her/his heart out this morning with the other 2. I had a trio at 6:30. Of course they stopped when they saw my flip video camera.

Have you done a search on here about hens crowing? There are LOTS of people who have laying hens that crow, there is even some video clips and they really do sound like a rooster... I personally still think it's a girl but I guess you won't know for sure until you see her lay an egg.

 

[rufus]

I don't see those sickle shaped feathers that roosters sport. My money says it is a hen. How old are they now? Sometimes when you have a hen only flock, one of the hens gets kind of kinky and mounts lesser ranking hens. My wife doesn't understand about that stuff; she thinks it is weird and disgusting. I tell her to go back into the house and watch her television.

Frankly, I think a flock does better when there is a rooster.

 

[LadyKotaDoria]

The past week I have been very busy. My mother has Pneumonia. She will be 97 in June, so it took a lot out of her, but she is coming back. She developed dementia and was seeing things and could not find the right words to express herself, we were told not to expect it to be reversed. Her oxygen was down to 85%, but! Now she has been home for a couple of days. She is slowly returning to herself. The only damage is her memory of all the names of everyone she knows (over 27 family, 45 neighbors, and no way to even count all her friends). The interesting thing is she has asked how the chickens are.

I'm back to working on my yard and getting my girls ready for the summer. I moved their coop over by the east wall of my house, dug out about a foot of dirt under their house. They seem to like it.

I hope it will help and buy me time to get some type of cooling system in place. I am interested in what others do to help their chicks in the 112 deg. heat. I did pick up 2 buckets to freeze water in for them. Shade, ventilation, and cold water is all I have for them right now.

 

[LadyKotaDoria]

Chicken math is setting in on my wife. She saw Cindy's post about the chicks she has and pointed them out to me. She wants me to be the bad guy and tell her no more. We'll see how this one turns out. I have a hard time telling her no to anything.

A question on owls... My Mom has had an owl or two, depending on the morning, perched on her neighbor's roof. She says it was a Great Horned Owl. Are they anything to worry about with the chickens? We let our girls out at 0400 Hours every morning and my Mom is three doors down. My wife sees them on the lightpoles, too, occasionally. There are all sorts of warnings on hawks, buf I don't recall a mention of owls.

Night all. Work comes early for us.

Great Horned Owls have taken out geese, chicken is no problem. I know of one that came in on a turkey, their dog prevented any out come, so I do not know if G H Owl vs Turkey would be owl 1, turkey 0. Somebody told me they can take out something like 20-25#, but they can not fly with that much weight. I do not know about 25#, that seems a bit big. It is probably 10-15#.
Youtube link. Owl & chicken