Arizona Chickens

[pipemum]

oh yeah, I used the Ecoglow heater for 2 days before I put ALL of the chicks under mama (started with 6). Best chicken money I've spent. I plan on keeping up with the broilers, and when I don't have a broody, the Ecoglow is awesome.

 

[City farm]

That has GOT to be a joke! I didn't think there were possums in AZ.

Welcome aboard

 

[City farm]

Our girls are developing bad habits:  What's Up With Them?

For the past few days, our girls who are a little over a year, have not been coming out of their coop at sunrise as usual. (it's after 10 am and they are still inside) Additionally, they are nesting near our back door at sun down.  DH and I had to pick them up last night and move them to their coop after dark.  Very strange.  I first thought maybe something got into the coop, so I went out with a flash light and found nothing out of the ordinary.   They are acting typical other than us encouraging them out in the am and putting them back in at night.  I don't want to enable this behavior. Any ideas?

Have you seen any hawks flying up above ??

 

[City farm]

Our girls are developing bad habits:  What's Up With Them?

For the past few days, our girls who are a little over a year, have not been coming out of their coop at sunrise as usual. (it's after 10 am and they are still inside) Additionally, they are nesting near our back door at sun down.  DH and I had to pick them up last night and move them to their coop after dark.  Very strange.  I first thought maybe something got into the coop, so I went out with a flash light and found nothing out of the ordinary.   They are acting typical other than us encouraging them out in the am and putting them back in at night.  I don't want to enable this behavior. Any ideas?

One other thing, look in the trees for a predator.? Or surrounding trees.. Use your binocular's.. We saw one way,way up soaring above the
ther day.. Our flock saw it before we did.. We just happen to be outside.. We plan on getting the netting for a trellis & hanging it from roof-roof top.
still allowing the in sun but not the hawks..

 

[MagicChicken]

oh yeah, I used the Ecoglow heater for 2 days before I put ALL of the chicks under mama (started with 6). Best chicken money I've spent. I plan on keeping up with the broilers, and when I don't have a broody, the Ecoglow is awesome.

SweeterHeaters are good, too, but they need a little more headroom for the chicks than the Ecoglow. I use the 50 watt SweeterHeater in my large outside brooder. It is rectangular in shape, with the longest side about 16". It is between the 20 and 50 chick Ecoglows in size. In cold weather I supplement the SweeterHeater with an infrared heat lamp that is on a thermostat. If it gets too warm in the brooder the heat lamp goes off but the SweeterHeater stays on. That combination worked great for the 25 chicks I brooded last year - in an outside brooder - in the middle of that horrible freeze we had. Just ordered another for backup. (And I also ordered a small Ecoglow for the inside brooder, where the chicks will stay for the first couple of days.)

http://sweeterheater.com/

 

[pollo disco]

Finally got caught up with all the posts...Yet again. Getting ready for Christmas with the family. Have a huge over-abundance of eggs sooo....The Fam is getting egg gifts in the morning! I just celebrated my 39th. birthday on the 21st. So that was fun. My parents gave me new egg cartons with personalized stickers. I will have to get pictures later. My RG Turk hen is laying massive spotted eggs. My bro and son love those! Still maintaining the 3 day lights on over-night for them. Seems to be working out great. My BlueWheaten Ameracaunas are really unreliable layers. And ofcourse, EVERYBODY wants the blue/green eggs. What are you gonna do?! On a side note. I got to watch a coyote chase a doe (white-tail) around. Amazing until the stupid deer turned toward me and left the desert dog heading right for me! Not more than 10 yards! lol. Then this morning, I was greeting a fellow employee at work and looked down at my feet to find a little stinker....Make that a skunk! ***!!! It was a little guy but still. It just wandered right up to my leg and started smelling. *ugh, rabies? I calmly just walked to the other side of the car and started making all kinds of noise. It eventually ran off. Weird days indeed.

 

[desertmarcy]

The top one looks like a cockerel to me. The bottom one, need better photo, but maybe pullet.

 

[pipemum]

There is definitely an owl interested in my chicks. With my first set of CX, the chicks were outside at 2 weeks and still peeping a lot. I went out one night to cover their pen, and as I bent over to look at them, an owl brushed my head and sort of ran into the reed fence above me. I think I startled it and blinded it with my headlamp--there's no way an owl could have gotten into the pen but it was certainly checking out the peeping chicks for dinner. Yesterday, again, an owl (same one?) swooped down to check out the new peepers. I thought I was seeing things since it was so quiet, but it flew right over my dog and he started to chase it, so unless we're both crazy...Great horned owls are huge and it's uncanny how such a big bird can fly with no noise.

I just can not keep the chickens out of my garden boxes. They got into my beets yesterday. Ate the tops, which is fine, but then they dust bathed in the rest of the bin and tore up all sorts of other veggies. Ugh. I really thought I could chicken proof my garden so that plants and animals could be compatible. It's not happening. I'll have to build another fence to confine them out.

 

[pipemum]

SweeterHeaters are good, too, but they need a little more headroom for the chicks than the Ecoglow. I use the 50 watt SweeterHeater in my large outside brooder. It is rectangular in shape, with the longest side about 16". It is between the 20 and 50 chick Ecoglows in size. In cold weather I supplement the SweeterHeater with an infrared heat lamp that is on a thermostat. If it gets too warm in the brooder the heat lamp goes off but the SweeterHeater stays on. That combination worked great for the 25 chicks I brooded last year - in an outside brooder - in the middle of that horrible freeze we had. Just ordered another for backup. (And I also ordered a small Ecoglow for the inside brooder, where the chicks will stay for the first couple of days.)

http://sweeterheater.com/

Does the Sweeterheater work in temps colder than 50 degree? So far, that's the drawback of the Ecoglow.

 

[pipemum]

Finally got caught up with all the posts...Yet again. Getting ready for Christmas with the family. Have a huge over-abundance of eggs sooo....The Fam is getting egg gifts in the morning! I just celebrated my 39th. birthday on the 21st. So that was fun. My parents gave me new egg cartons with personalized stickers. I will have to get pictures later. My RG Turk hen is laying massive spotted eggs. My bro and son love those! Still maintaining the 3 day lights on over-night for them. Seems to be working out great. My BlueWheaten Ameracaunas are really unreliable layers. And ofcourse, EVERYBODY wants the blue/green eggs. What are you gonna do?! On a side note. I got to watch a coyote chase a doe (white-tail) around. Amazing until the stupid deer turned toward me and left the desert dog heading right for me! Not more than 10 yards! lol. Then this morning, I was greeting a fellow employee at work and looked down at my feet to find a little stinker....Make that a skunk! ***!!! It was a little guy but still. It just wandered right up to my leg and started smelling. *ugh, rabies? I calmly just walked to the other side of the car and started making all kinds of noise. It eventually ran off. Weird days indeed.

How cool--was it just one coyote chasing down the deer?
My dogs and coyotes were having a standoff yesterday. I'm pretty sure it was coyotes that got the CX a few weeks ago, and that's definitely emboldened them. 2 of my dogs are bigger than coyotes, but I think the coyotes are used to eating neighborhood dogs and cats (and now chickens) and have no fear of my dogs. The back part of my fence is wrought iron, and yesterday it was the coyotes and dogs on either side, each looking for a little action. The coyotes only ran away when they me come out. Sigh. My 3rd dog is a little guy, who was attacked and rolled by a tiny bantam chicken...if the big dogs don't protect him from coyotes, he is gonna be toast.

I love skunks...from a distance!

Happy birthday!