Arizona Chickens

[City farm]

Save us one if there is any left..

I'll check for you!

Awesome thank you... I did get your text, we were enjoying the afternoon out back in the garden with our friends for lunch.
By the time I was done with dish's & serving everyone I forgot to respond. Then the battery was gone..
I made the potatoe & bean soup with meat.. Rye croutons with fresh rosemary & garlic.. Toped it
off with a dollop of sour cream & garlic chives..yum.. Love Sunday afternoons this time of year..

 

[City farm]

Petra, I live right next to the Preserve now. Very near 32nd Street and Eva/Dunlap. I can walk out my front door and be on a trail in less than a minute. Where do you hike? I take a trail that joins with the Squaw Peak perimeter trail and I really enjoy it.

We get there by taking Lincoln and park in one of the parking lots there. We don't do the summit trail with the little ones, but truth be told, they'd probably make it, it's DH and I carrying the babies that wouldn't! Here we are, the baby is sound asleep in my backpack. DH gets to carry the heavy 2 year old most of the way.

Look at your cuties... They are such good kids!! It is really the parents!!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

OMG I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!! My MOMMA DUCK IS GONE!!!! WAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!! :'( My drake just keeps calling for her. OMG he is going to be misserable. WAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! :'( **** COYOTES!!!!!!
It just keeps coming here. I have lost my little Orpy Annie BO hen, just started laying. My Americana, and now my momma duck. All since new years.

Going to get cement and get that **** enclosure up NOW!!!! If they would just give me the chance to get it done. I'M LOSING ALL OF MY EGG LAYERS!!

I also lost my old horse Pooh but she was just very very old, New Years day.
I also lost 2 family members the day before Thanksgiving and Dec 19th.

My heart is so heavy right now. I was hoping for a better beginning to the year but the heart ache just keeps coming. :'(

Now I need to find a female Buff Orpington Duck or my drake will go mad. They were so happy. I was looking forward to ducklings this spring. WAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!! :'(

So sorry for you losses

Why not bring the remaning birds into your garage or house until you get the pen/coop secured? A day or so in cages is better than becoming coyote food. If you ask for a buff duck, you will be understood. If you ask for a buff orpington, you will get chickens. In the US, they are called buff ducks.

 

[MagicChicken]

So, I'm looking for some help. I'm a first time chicken owner and I am so worried something is going to happen to my chickens. I used to volunteer at a bird rehabilitation center and I've had a lot of experience of what can happen to birds. So I'm putting together a medical kit with everything I can think of that I might need in case of an emergency. What kind of things do you keep on hand? Have you ever had a situation where you wished you had something you hadn't thought of before? Any advice is appreciated

While I love my chickens dearly, my birds are not pets. I want a healthy, vigorous flock that provide eggs and meat. So for me it would depend on the emergency. For mild injuries I might just separate the bird from the rest of the flock for a few days so it didn't get picked on while it recovered. Seriously injured birds requiring extensive rehab would be loved up, apologized to, and then converted into chicken and dumplings, assuming the injuries had not contaminated the meat. Visibly ill birds would be culled for protection of the flock. So what I keep on hand is a cage for isolating a mildly injured bird, a sharp knife, and a stew pot.

If you insist on a medical kit for emergencies, vet wrap is essential. It's a staple in my human emergency kit. Much cheaper than the nearly identical "athletic wrap" or "bandage wrap" you can find at the drug store. And it comes in better colors. Plus you can use small strips of it as temporary leg bands to mark chicks. Great stuff!

 

[MagicChicken]

As of yesterday I have three bouncing baby chicks. Never thought I'd think a 40% hatch rate was good, but I am thrilled to have ANY chicks out of this hatch. Had some serious problems with the incubator humidity for the first ten days. Candled them at 18 days when I put them in the hatcher, and most of the eggs didn't look quite right. I put them in the hatcher anyway and four hatched right on time yesterday. One chick didn't make it past the hatch. He got out of his egg but remained tethered to a huge yolk sac, and died a couple of hours later. The other four eggs have not even pipped. They are still in the hatcher but I am not optimistic.

Crossing my fingers that the next hatch is closer to 100%. Incubator humidity issue seems to be resolved.

 

[kevs-chickadees]

I have never harvested it BUT when a friend had a tree I would always beg for a few branches for the girls! SO I'm doing my research like crazy!

Mine is to small still so I dare not harvest any leaves. However whenever I come across someone else tree, I help myself.

What? it's not like they even know what kind of tree they have......

 

[Demosthine]

As of yesterday I have three bouncing baby chicks. Never thought I'd think a 40% hatch rate was good, but I am thrilled to have ANY chicks out of this hatch. Had some serious problems with the incubator humidity for the first ten days. Candled them at 18 days when I put them in the hatcher, and most of the eggs didn't look quite right. I put them in the hatcher anyway and four hatched right on time yesterday. One chick didn't make it past the hatch. He got out of his egg but remained tethered to a huge yolk sac, and died a couple of hours later. The other four eggs have not even pipped. They are still in the hatcher but I am not optimistic.

Crossing my fingers that the next hatch is closer to 100%. Incubator humidity issue seems to be resolved.

I understand you there. I'm having trouble keeping my humidity up high enough, too. It wouldn't budge above 40% for a little while, so although it was on the low end, I thought it was ok. Then today, I noticed it was down around 36% all morning, so I doubled up and filled the second channel. It went up to 39%, but no more. I have the vent nearly completely closed right now hoping it bumps it up, but it hasn't. For the instructions sounding so simple, it definitely isn't! I'm glad these aren't any expensive eggs. Heck, I'm just glad I didn't have to pay for them. I may have to find a better humidity and temperature sensor. The AccuRite model I have may not work in the long run.

My house is sitting around 70*F all day, so would that be part of it? We don't keep our house any warmer than that during the winter.

 

[kpgoldstar]

OMG I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!!! My MOMMA DUCK IS GONE!!!! WAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!! :'( My drake just keeps calling for her. OMG he is going to be misserable. WAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! :'( **** COYOTES!!!!!!
It just keeps coming here. I have lost my little Orpy Annie BO hen, just started laying. My Americana, and now my momma duck. All since new years.

Going to get cement and get that **** enclosure up NOW!!!! If they would just give me the chance to get it done. I'M LOSING ALL OF MY EGG LAYERS!!

I also lost my old horse Pooh but she was just very very old, New Years day.
I also lost 2 family members the day before Thanksgiving and Dec 19th.

My heart is so heavy right now. I was hoping for a better beginning to the year but the heart ache just keeps coming. :'(

Now I need to find a female Buff Orpington Duck or my drake will go mad. They were so happy. I was looking forward to ducklings this spring. WAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!! :'(

Oh, my! I am so sorry to hear of your losses. Your Orpy Annie was so pretty! Your drake must be as sad as you are. I don't know you but I wanted to send my condolences

 

[pdx2phx]

Quote: that's it!! Phew....I could describe the label, the color, the interesting purple pattern in makes on your skin & clothes when they shake it on you.....just not the brand name

 

[maryhysong]

While I love my chickens dearly, my birds are not pets. I want a healthy, vigorous flock that provide eggs and meat. So for me it would depend on the emergency. For mild injuries I might just separate the bird from the rest of the flock for a few days so it didn't get picked on while it recovered. Seriously injured birds requiring extensive rehab would be loved up, apologized to, and then converted into chicken and dumplings, assuming the injuries had not contaminated the meat. Visibly ill birds would be culled for protection of the flock. So what I keep on hand is a cage for isolating a mildly injured bird, a sharp knife, and a stew pot.

If you insist on a medical kit for emergencies, vet wrap is essential. It's a staple in my human emergency kit. Much cheaper than the nearly identical "athletic wrap" or "bandage wrap" you can find at the drug store. And it comes in better colors. Plus you can use small strips of it as temporary leg bands to mark chicks. Great stuff!

I too am coming to recognize that the best cure for a sick chicken is the hatchet. Injuries or things I"m not sure what's going on, they will get the dog crate for a couple days while I observe. After a severe dog attack I had some badly injured birds; They got some ACV water with molasses to treat the shock; slathered on NuStock to cover all the injuries. One girl was bit in the head, puncture right at the end of her comb. I figured she wouldn't last the night. Every night I went to bed thinking I would have to cull her the next day. The first few days she didn't move or open her eyes, but she would take the water if I held the cup and pushed her beak in. Every day or two there was some improvement, so I gave her a chance. She was able to recover completely and even began laying. But she ended up being blind in one eye and could not compete in the flock. I gave her to a gal that I knew would be able to give her a good home, where her blindness could be accommodated.

But the ducks injured by the bobcat, missing most of their butts, one with a wing barely hanging on, another limping badly .... Those were processed for the freezer. Which is where some of them were headed anyway; they just didn't make such pretty packages.

Yes, I have some favorite birds and some are *like* pets and I am always sad when something happens to those; like my breeding drake that was injured by the bobcat, nearly cried when I processed him. But his injuries were extensive and even had he recovered, he quite possibly would never breed again. So, second best place for him, in the freezer.