Arizona Chickens

[MaddBaggins]

I listen to a ton of music. My taste is pretty varied. Everything from late 60's to now as long as its not country or polka or too much hip hop or top 40.

My daughter has been all over my music collection. Apple homesharing between computers is so awesome. I wish we had that when I was a kid. My dad got ****** if he caught me using his turntable. Now, my girl has complete access to my music and she can't screw it up.

 

[MaddBaggins]

I'm roasting a chicken (not one of my girls) in a pint of my Porter right now. Thats going to get shredded up and added to a crock of pintos and roasted Hatch chilis. Brown rice and fresh tortillas on the side.

Holy carp!!! This is smelling so good right now!!

 

[MaddBaggins]

Hope everyone enjoys a couple links. One of my favorite bands. The lead singer is a very talented individual. Among various music endeavors, he is also an AZ resident and wine maker.

 

[MaddBaggins]

 

[Twinklin]

Never been a Tool fan. Never been much of a hard rock or metal fan, period. Tool was pretty popular when I was probably a senior in high school, '98-99. In the late 90s and early 2000s I listened to a little like Korn, Deftones and Metallica but that's pretty much where it stopped. I don't dislike it, I just like other stuff much more. I'm a happy music person. I listen to a lot of 80s pop, classic rock, funk, disco, jazz, and older electronic music. I do like some top 40 as well. I like music to put me in an upbeat mood and make me dance.

 

[Beckyhsinglsc]

Quote: X2!!! Just made 1dozen hard boiled for macaroni salad.. Gotta get one
I want one of those too. No problem peeling fresh eggs eh?

Not for me. I poke the eggs with the little pin-poker that came with it and when I take them out of the cooker I submerge them in tap water for a few minutes to cool them down. I can peel them when warm or cold after that.

 

[Beckyhsinglsc]

Am I correct in assuming you all clip their wings in order for them to stay out of the gardens? I need to set up the fencing around my wife's garden while they are all banned to the side yard for overseeding, but I was planning on going the full six feet. Until, that is, I watched half my flock go straight up to the top of my pool fence.

I think they just look so awkward with clipped wings. I don't like it. Our turkeys look downright horrible clipped, but when my Dad found one in the front yard...

I have a 3 ft garden fence, I don't clip wings and the chickens stay out. If they can't see the top(like if it's just wire) they won't usually try to go over. If they can see the top (like on the wood gate I use to have) they will jump to the top of that and then over.

 

[MagicChicken]

Quote:
Chickens versus Garden

For a couple of years I had a garden with a 2' high chicken wire fence, and chickens that respected the fence. They would eat stuff that grew through it, but they never tried to get over the fence. I would plant stuff for them around the edges, and I would eat the stuff in the middle. It was a great system. And then came the Fayoumi girls, and the garden world changed...

Round 1: It took my two Fayoumi cross pullets a couple of weeks to figure out how to get into that garden. They would land on top of the 2"x2" upright posts that the chicken wire was stapled to. The fence doesn't have any top rails. It is just chicken wire stapled to 2x2" uprights every couple of feet (the uprights are screwed in to the 2"x6" frame around the raised bed garden). Those Fayoumi crosses figured out how to balance on that little 2"x2" square, and jump into the garden from there. Then they taught my fat old 3 year old production hen to do the same thing...

My garden was decimated...


Round 2: I really wanted a garden, so I took 4'x7' sheets of remesh and arched them into hoops over what was left of the garden beds. Covered the arches with plastic poultry netting. Planted new stuff. It worked for a while. Then I found this:



Yes, that's right - my fat old production red hen. On top of the netting. I have no idea how she got up there. But she did it several times.

A few days after that photo was taken the Fayoumi crosses figured out how to get under the netting. End of my winter/spring garden. What they didn't eat they scratched into oblivion. It was also the end of the Fayoumis. They went swimming with dumplings along with the production red. I couldn't let them teach the next batch of chickens how to do those acrobatic garden-destroying things. But that production red girl sure was happy for the last few weeks of her life!

 

[MagicChicken]

I have seven new baby chicks! A 50% hatch rate. Not great, not awful.

Broody girl was still sitting firmly on the unhatched eggs. In the meantime the chicks were starting to get feisty in the nest box. Since it was two days past the hatching date and no new chicks had appeared in a while, I pulled the chicks out of the nest box and let them loose on the floor of the coop/run. Then I pulled the remaining eggs out from under the broody. (They were all duds.) She still sat there. I finally managed to pull her out of the box and plunked her down on the floor of the coop next to the chicks, who were already starting to run all over the place. Broody girl snapped into momma-hen mode and immediately started showing the chicks how to forage for stuff in the deep litter. Awww... I'm so proud of her. Looks like she's going to be a good mom.

Downside of having the broody raise the chicks in the coop/run: it's hard to avoid stepping on the chicks! Already had one get under foot and partly stepped on. Ouch. Good thing the coop has deep litter. The chick just sank down into the litter. For a minute I thought I might have to cull it, but it gathered its wits and was moving around with the other chicks a few minutes later. By the end of the day I couldn't tell which one it was. I think it's going to be fine, but I'll keep an eye out for weird limps.

The other birds didn't have a problem with the chicks. They did have a problem with momma hen getting all puffy and in their faces when they tried to get near their feeder. (I have the chick feeder under the hanging grown-up feeder for now.) At one point the cockerel scuffed with momma, basically putting her in her place for being so aggressively defensive of the feeding area. She took the chicks off to a corner after that, and everybody else got to eat. I will have to watch the dynamics and make sure everyone is getting enough food. Tomorrow I will make a special feeding area for the chicks that the big girls can't get into. Today it wouldn't have done any good - the chicks stayed under momma most of the time. In a day or two they will be more adventurous. Soon they will appreciate a grownup-free area. As long as momma hen remains nearby.

The cuteness factor is overwhelmingly distracting!

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

MagicChicken, how exciting with the broody! I think watching a broody with her chicks is one of the most fascinating and fun aspects of raising chickens. Their vocalizations and interactions are so interesting; it's amazing how all that pre-programmed behavior is revealed. The stepping on them problem seems to only get worse as they get more active.

I learned to shuffle my feet around them rather than stepping. What breed of chickens are they?