Arizona Chickens

[Sill]

i would like to know too. i have lots of broccoli seeds from my plants.

I also have seeds to share. Please let me know when it gets to the Phoenix area.

I must say the jungle fowl goes after the fly's.. Now that desert Marcy mentioned tapeworms I might have to do a de wormer..
Just gave away the last 3 baby chicks.. Also still have the 3 laying hens for sale.. 2 Plymoth Barred rocks, 1 Golden lakenvelder..

I wonder if freezing the dead flies would kill the parasites. We freeze garden and pond snails to kill parasites before feeding them to my DD's blue tongue skink. I would assume freezing the flies for at least 48 hours would do the same.

I think it is all natural? A girlfriend that rescues wild birds, Said she uses it for the new birds that come in for rehab.. I meant to ask her if it was for lice & mites..
I think she did say yes.. I have not made time to research..

I'm interested in learning more about this product. Can you just put the bath water in their enclosure and let them use it? Is it safe for them to drink? I found several variations of this product in a search but none said exactly what's in the "bath salts".

 

[moms3cuties]

I live in the Verde Valley about 15 miles from Chicken-mama.  It does get hot up here but my coop is always in the shade as is half the run all day.  Never had to mist or provide ice yet but I will if they look distressed.   

  Plenty of water and no cracked corn!


We have a whirlybird on the roof of the coop and that draws a lot of the hot air out.  I make sure all the doors (3) to the coop are open and both windows for cross ventilation.


I have a friend who has had chickens for years in Peoria and they only thing she does is keeps the mister going during the day. 


Jacie

I live near downtown Mesa and my friend in Apache Junction said that they had to have a child's swimming pool and extra water for their chickens as she ended up losing some in Apache Junction one summer ago. My other friend (had 8 hens) in Gilbert has a old bathtub that she fills with water for her chickens and plenty of shade.

I would go out once or twice a day and dip my hens feet in the pool and throw water under each wing to help keep them cool and offer plenty of cold melons and tomatoes.

 

[Sill]

Speaking of baths I put some unglazed terracotta pot saucers with an inch or two of water in them into the quail pens. They reminded me of kids playing in a wading pool! They were jumping in and out and splashing. They even bathed in the water. These are my first quail so I had no idea quail would bathe in water, not just dust. Of course they had to do both so I now have some muddy/dusty quail!




It was a good experiment since it got a bit warm today and I wanted to see how the terracotta would help them cool off. Since the saucers are unglazed they soak up water and it evaporates and keeps the water many degrees cooler than surrounding objects. Even after the water is gone the clay stays cool for a long time. This is the same method of cooling used in terracotta wine coolers. I need to find extra large terracotta saucers for my chickens to wade in.

 

[Demosthine]

I came across a blog post from someone in the Phoenix area about keeping chickens cool in summer. I found the included photos very helpful.

http://tbnranch.com/2011/08/02/keeping-the-chickens-cool-heres-how/

(Won't it be funny if the person who wrote it is a regular here?!!)

Ok, with all this discussion, I have to chime in. I firmly disagree with several things in this article. First and foremost is that we shouldn't pamper our animals this way. It does much more harm than good. Mother Nature has allowed warm-blooded animals to acclimate to their environment without the assistance of us pesky humans for thousands of years. Just look around at all of the animals that not only survive, but thrive in the desert. Coyotes, mountain lions, javelina, hawks, eagles, and then list goes on. Our pets are the same way. An animal who is kept inside all the time will have a far more difficult time handling the heat than those kept outside. They shed their winter furs and molt their winter feathers in exchange for their summer counterparts. We see it in humans every year, too. The countless people rescued off the mountains from heat exhaustion because they don't maintain an active outdoor lifestyle year round. They decide to up and go hiking during summer, and even in the 80s and 90s, many end up in distress. It's all about how you prepare for it.

Not to say there aren't a few reasonable steps to take to ensure an adequate environment, but frozen bottles and misters being changed hourly (like several mentioned doing last summer), is not natural or healthy for anyone. I will agree with their blog in terms of getting rid of the standard watering containers. Ceramic crocks and insulated containers like Gallo's five-gallon bucket are more than adequate to provide clean, cool water all day. You don't need to be changing them out constantly. Likewise, a properly installed system plumbed directly to your water line will provide an endless supply of cool, fresh water for a minimal amount of money, too. No matter how you do it, keep it in the shade for the most benefits.

I think misters and fans are overrated in all but the most extreme heat. Put all that extra water in to maintaining a nice, lush lawn and you will get far more benefits out of it. Below is a quote of a small experiment I did last summer here at my house. The difference in temperatures between my rock and dirt from yard compared to my backyard lawn were just astounding to me. But that brings up another point in the above blog that I disagree with. All of the "ground litter including hay and straw" doesn't "hold in the heat" anymore than it holds in the cold. It acts as an insulator and regulates the temperature more than just barren ground. And a lush grass lawn does not use an excess of water. Properly maintained, it actually uses very little because that insulation the grass provides helps prevent the water from evaporating and allows it to be absorbed in to the ground. Check in to Allan Savory and his desertification theories about this topic!

The only other two things are plenty of shade and a well ventilated coop, just like Jacie mentioned. I'm sure this seems very counterintuitive to many, but commercialism has caused us to stray so far from holistic management in order to sell their products. Joel Salatin and PolyFace Farms have this figured out and all of us should take his advise to heart. Less is really more, far more. Let the animals be the animals the way God intended.

SO, with our discussion early regarding grass, xeriscaping, and temperatures, I decided to do an unscientific test of the various parts of my house. I started by sitting in the backyard and calculated how many sweat droplets appeared on my arm in 60 seconds... I cooled off inside and repeated the procedure out front... Just kidding!!!

What I actually did was to place a digital quick-read meat thermometer in each location and allowed it to sit until the temperature stabilized. I wasn't really surprised the results, but it makes me feel a whole lot better about my setup... And it explains why they prefer sitting in the shaded grass below the slides

Backyard
Shaded Grass: 88*
Sunny Grass: 97*
Shaded Porch with Ceiling Fan: 111*
Inside the Coop: 112*

Front Yard
Shaded Rock: 119*
Sunny Rock: 127*

 

[carnivore]

Speaking of baths I put some unglazed terracotta pot saucers with an inch or two of water in them into the quail pens. They reminded me of kids playing in a wading pool! They were jumping in and out and splashing. They even bathed in the water. These are my first quail so I had no idea quail would bathe in water, not just dust. Of course they had to do both so I now have some muddy/dusty quail! It was a good experiment since it got a bit warm today and I wanted to see how the terracotta would help them cool off. Since the saucers are unglazed they soak up water and it evaporates and keeps the water many degrees cooler than surrounding objects. Even after the water is gone the clay stays cool for a long time. This is the same method of cooling used in terracotta wine coolers. I need to find extra large terracotta saucers for my chickens to wade in.

How about the "drip trays" from large flowerpots?

 

[pimachickens]

The start of my new flock

 

[a little chiken]

The only thing I do for my chickens in the summer is provide some rubber water pans that I put in the shade and we have the automatic water system that works awesome. They do great and I have not lost any by doing this. I do have some trees that help shade my coops.

 

[dlayne]

Someone posted a meme like this on Facebook regarding ponies.. I liked it and feel it works better for chickens. Happy Friday everyone!

 

[a little chiken]

The start of my new flock

How cute are they Rhode island red?

 

[K9Dave]

Nice looking chicks