Arizona Chickens

[dlayne]

Do any of you know someone who is missing a peahen? One showed up in my yard and I'd like to find her owner if I can.

Thank You!

 

[LadyKotaDoria]

I was watching videos on game chickens. I was taking note, a number of the hens had tuffs like that. I also noticed that there is a wide verity of personalities. A no garden tee thing or odds that your rooster will be aggressive. With most chickens I have learn of to this point, there roosters have a set of expectations, with the odd ball that didn't read the book. In some of the videos several hard feather game roosters were lose together. In the one video, there was definitely the boss, but that is true with all flocks. Also read that moor and moor people are breeding NOT fighting birds, but breed enthuse. However, apparently a lot of mixing is done in the fighting world to achieve a fighting bird. I was unaware just how popular cock fighting is all over the world.

I am not sure, but from the little I have learned, they attitude to the bird is just wanting to see blood to actual fighting skill and ability, and not wanting them to fight to the death. From razor spurs to boxing glove balls for spurs with the rooster winning by points not who is alive at the end. I am not interested enough to continue my research at this time. But I did find it interesting. The Philippines, Mexico, and the US appears to have the greatest blood lust. Nothing to be proud of.

 

[City farm]

I haven't' been on for a while, life is too chaotic. Even today we are trying to fix an electrical problem that left us without power in several rooms yesterday. However I wanted to share about the strange bird we found. Two weeks ago, we noticed a strange bird on a neighbors second story patio and watched it for a while. The neighbor then came out and shooed it away. It then flew into our street and into the wheel well of a car. We rescued it out and took it out with our hens to check it out... It never left even though our hens free range most of the day. Today was the first day it even ventured to the garden...

After some research I believe it is Harold brown hen, never seen anything like it and I have seen many breeds and variations of chickens. My son calls her Carl. Very friendly, eats from my hand.

Wow that is so cool...

 

[City farm]

Hey y'all just moved to the Show Low area. Anyone else from the white mountains?

So glad you joined in.. &.

 

[City farm]

Yay, we FINALLY got our first egg since all the girls started molting in Novemberish. The rest are starting to show enlarged, bright combs, too. We may be getting back on track shortly. It's been hard having to buy the vegetarian store bought crap that doesn't cook right!

On a bad note, our broad breasted turkey keeled over last week. She was overdue for slaughter, but seemed so healthy that I waited. My freezer was rather full and shd wouldn't fit. I guess heart gave out anyway. No pests or anything on her. She just became very lethargic at roosting time and was dead by morning. Another GREAT reason to buy heritage....

Oh man that is such a drag.. Condolences from us...

 

[MandyFitch]

I did it! I caught up! Life got busy and suddenly I was weeks behind. Wow you guys talk a lot!

Happy to hear everyone is getting eggs now. From my six girls I've got three layers and I'm getting nearly an egg a day from all three. Of course those are the "after thought" hatchery chicks. My specials - the BCMs, my lavender Ameraucana and my silkie are nowhere near squatting for me. Just taking their fancy time, I guess.

So very awful about Sonoran Silkies' husband. My husband climbs outside too and this sort of news just scares the living daylights out of me. I hope she has a lot of family and friends around her right now.

You might have seen on the BYC Facebook page the photo I took of my nesting box. I'm pretty pleased my silly idea actually worked! My new project is a putting in raised beds but I've got to get a fence up to protect the garden from the girls. Twinklin, or anyone who has done this successfully, how high should the fence be? I do not want to clip wings due to the occasional hawk swooping down over the girls. Also, are there any vines I can plant around the coop that my chickens won't destroy immediately? I saw the grapevines in Gallo's coop. I'd love to know how you pulled that off because my girls destroy every living green thing!

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

MandyFitch the "nest box" is adorable. I planted my grapevines a couple years before I got chickens and built the run around them. You could either plant them on the outside of your run fencing or you'll have to protect them for a short period of time until the vines grow long enough that the chickens can't jump up and get the tip. It doesn't take much time at all before the vine will grow out of jumping height. Your local nursery will have grape vines that are relatively long--probably long enough to be too tall for the chickens.

As far as keeping chickens out of garden projects, I've found that simple welded wire works well. I took a 4' tall roll of 2" X 4" welded wire that I cut in half lengthwise so I have two strips of 2' tall fencing. I use the tag ends of the cut part in the middle to insert into the ground and don't use posts. This works best for smaller areas and areas with curves (as opposed to long straight runs), but I've never had a chicken get into anything protected by this fencing, even though it's only two feet tall (and I've never clipped wings). When crossing fences they like to fly up and land on a high point, like a top rail to the fence, before crossing over but they don't like to land and re-launch from thin wire. If you have existing fencing, you could take a foot or two of welded wire and add it to the top and that should help keep them out. I should point out that I have all heavy breeds that are less than athletic. I'm not sure how this arrangement might work for something like a leghorn or a smaller bantam.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

I remembered a fence that Mikey D built some time ago to keep his birds out of some areas. He also made it so it would articulate, like Twinklin's, but it had wire at the top. He said it worked great (Mikey's pic):

 

[rockmissjess]

IN YAVAPAI COUNTY HERE LOOKIN FOR NEW CHICKEN LOVER FRIENDS! ANYONE HAVE COYOTE ISSUES???? I HAVE ALOT OF COYOTES AROUND HERE AND I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW TO KEEP THEM AWAY FROM MY HOME.

 

[rockmissjess]

In the Prescott area Cal Ranch has chicks right now and then Olsen's grain, both in Prescott and Chino Valley, will get chicks in at the end of March. Cal Ranch seems to be the only place right now that has chicks. I just purchased some buff orpingtons and black sex link chicks.

TRACTOR SUPPLY IN PV also has chicks