Arizona Chickens

[carnivore]

Good evening everyone.... I'm the other half to lil chiken. She is, of course, the better half... I have 3 barred cochins, and 2 ducks named Fish and Meatball.... Nice to meet all ya'all...

Welcome to the club! lil chicken tells me we are in the same business!:cd

 

[DesertChickens1]

Funny story
So we hadn't been getting eggs for a couple days (only one hen is laying) we weren't worried because our hen doesn't always lay. But then I found an egg in the middle of the yard, little weird right? I just figured maybe it was a big birds egg. So its been five days without eggs, I've looked through the whole coop and run, nothing. I woke up early yesterday to slaughter another meat chicken, so im up at like 5:30 sitting on the porch waiting for the water to boil.
I have three dogs, one of which is a hound dog that lives outside. So I call my hound and she doesn't come, I don't pay any mind, sometimes it takes her a minute to get from the edge of the front yard to the back. But then I hear a sound coming from the coop. I look over and what do I see? I see my hound happily trotting out of the coop with an egg in her mouth! She had dug a hole under the porch where I couldn't see and was getting in there and stealing the eggs!!! I call her and she comes and I grab the egg out of her mouth, its not even cracked.
So now the porch has blocks all around the bottom and if the eggs ever go missing again, I know just who to look at.

 

[Mr lil chiken]

Welcome to the club! lil chicken tells me we are in the same business!:cd

If that has to do with aeroplanes, then yeppers.....

 

[Twinklin]

Well that's not good. I only have the 4 and that's all I plan to have. I am not zoned for chickens. I don't have a rooster, so no fertile eggs. I can't get fertile eggs that I know of, nor do I really want to hatch out chicks that I can't keep. I can't get chicks, nearest location at best would be an hour away, at worst 3 hours. I think it's too hot to keep her in the garage with no air circulation. How many days did it take for you? 4-5? Do you need a cage that is raised so she can't sit? I couldn't put her in a cage in the run where she can scratch at the dirt but can't get to the nest box? And she has to stay in it 24 hours until she's broken?

I closed the door to the coop when I let them out tonight. Later I found her on top of the coop trying to find a way in. I kept her out until almost bedtime, but when I opened the door she was right up the stairs and in the box again. I keep hoping she'll just snap out of it. Probably not, right? I just don't know what my options are.

I used a wire dog cage with the bottom tray removed and then put it on 2 2x4s laid on their flat side so she could put her legs through the holes in the bottom of the cage and stand on the floor or try to perch on the bars on the bottom of the cage. So it was only raised 2 inches off the ground but made her uncomfortable enough. If I had had a cage with smaller holes I could have raised it up higher but since the dog cage has large holes I didn't want her to hurt herself getting stuck in the holes. I had her in the garage which is not A/Cd but is a little cooler than outside. It's probably 90 degrees in there. I have the 3 week old chicks in there and they haven't touched the ecoglow brooder for warmth so it's pretty warm in the garage. If I didn't have chicks in there I would have turned a fan on for Ely. I tried having her in there for 2 days because my bf insisted it wasn't fair having her in there and he felt bad for her so I let her out a day early but she went back to the nest box after like 20 mins or grazing in the yard so I put her back in for 72 hours and she hasn't been in the nest box since. It's been maybe 3 days since she's been back in the yard so a total of 8 days with no egg but she always gets stressed out in quarantine and it takes her a while to get back into routine.

 

[Twinklin]

Yep that looks like a roo! The third pic down looks like the roadrunner that keeps eyeballing my quail.

Someone in the polish thread says it's still way too early to tell, that all of their's (roos and pullets) look that way right now and are very upright and active, so I'm going to keep my fingers crossed.

 

[Stynch]

For the ones you aren't letting hatch broods what are you doing to break them?

One of my Leghorn mutts goes broody about every 3 months (Leghorns aren't supposed to go broody, so I guess she gets that from whatever her other half is). Since we don't have a broody jail but do have a secure "play yard" that attaches to the run and coop area, we just lock her on that side, all by herself, for about 3 days. If the other girls all lay early, I sometimes close off the nests and open the connecting door during the afternoon so the girls can still interact. The key, we learned very quickly, is to not let her have any access to the nest box until she is broken. She usually starts laying again in just a few days. Good luck!!

 

[Arizona Son]

For the ones you aren't letting hatch broods what are you doing to break them?

Truthfully, I'm not doing anything to break them. I just gave in & am letting them hatch a few eggs apiece. I have broodies in nest boxes, dog crates, small animal cages, mop buckets, etc! There is going to be an explosion of peeps here in a few more weeks! I lost quite a few birds last week because of stupid Barn Owls, so I guess I have a little more room here because of that.

 

[carnivore]

For a cool treat for the heat, I chilled a can of fruit cocktail in the fridge. (Del Monte, no sugar added, mostly peaches, pears, cherries, and seedless grapes). Drained it and poured the fruit in a large bowl and took it out to the run. OMG! Have you ever seen 33 chickens try to climb in the same bowl?

 

[a little chiken]

Whats weird is all 3 of my blue Ameraucanas, one black Ameraucanas and one blue wheatens Ameraucana are the ones that went broody. One blue is an amazing mama hatched 4/9 but the other chickens broke 2/9 so she did good. One of the other blues and my blue wheatens are being very diligent. The other blue freak s out any time we go near nest boxes. The blk comes and goes as she pleases oh and we have a crested that plays at setting when its convienant to her. You gotta love the antics of chickens. I gotta go see if my chick that pipped has actually hatched.

 

[a little chiken]

So mad both chicks that hatched have died and one half hatched and was backward s so it died. I think its too many hens in the nest box sooo we took it to 1 in ea box. And fenced them off from all the others. There are 2 more nest boxes ill see if the 2 I kicked out try to set up shop in those if they do im breaking them.