Arizona Chickens

[a little chiken]

I think we all have had a few hiccups lately..

Did you get my text?

no I didnt.

 

[a little chiken]

I am new to BYC so if I break the rules, feel free to correct me. Thanks to K9Dave for bringing me onboard. I live in Queen Creek AZ and build chicken coops and raise chickens. I have 5 flocks., Lavender Americanas, Golden Marans, Cream Legbars, Bielefelders and Blue Wheatons. The LA's and Wheaton's are juvies yet and the Beilefelders are just about to start laying. I have Marans and Legbars in the incubator. If all goes well I will be hatching about 125 chicks a week. Shipping will be available as well as local pickup. Prices will vary, depending on age and breed. Greenfire sells their Bielefelders for $50 for a day old hen. My stock is from Greenfire. PM me if you'd like to talk about birds or coops. on Facebook at chickenwerks and my web site is www.chickenwerksaz.com

Hi Mark. I also raise Ameraucanas. Can I ask if your Lavender are Ameraucana's ? are they a purebred or an EE? I just ask because of the spelling and I am not trying to be rude but I was "schooled" that there is no "I" in Ameraucana.

I have Black, Blue, Splash, Blue Wheaten, Wheaten, and Buff AM and will be adding White, Silver and Lavender next year. I will also be doing a project of Chocolate AM as well. The AM are my favorite breed. I also have Cuckoo Marans, NN, Aloha, Polish crested, EE and OE. I would be interested in seeing your AM. Who did you get your starter stock from?

My FB page if
https://www.facebook.com/PrickleyAcresFurbabies?ref_type=bookmark.

 

[MagicChicken]

Quote:
Could very well be male. I've never tried to sex them. Still think it looks like a youngish spider, though. I'm surprised you haven't encountered them. They've been in most of the houses I've lived in in Tucson. Central, foothills, southwest. These are active, hunting spiders. Definitely not sedentary. They roam around a lot. They don't just move when looking for mates. They are shy and good at hiding in the daytime. They can flatten out and fit into tiny crevices. I tend to see them in the evening. I don't spray pesticides either. Before I closed on my house in central Tucson it was tented and fumigated for drywood termites. Killed everything. By the time I moved out ten years later I had a thriving population of crab spiders and geckos. I'm much more tolerant of crab spiders than other spiders in the house, because the crab spiders do not build webs. Anything that eats bugs and doesn't make me clean more often is okay by me.

 

[pipemum]

I've used pesticides every few years against ants. I hate using poison since I have geckos, horned lizards, and tarantulas and love them, but I hate ants pouring out of my ceiling more than I love my geckos. And I just bought Amdro granules for the leafcutters. I'm sick of them denuded everything. So far, it's either working or this year hasn't been a bad leafcutter year. Certainly a horrid fly year. Or, maybe that's a great fly year...so many of them this year.

And haha, I loved having geckos keeping me company in my kitchen till I found lizard poo in my utensils. NOT AMUSING. No more lizard 'pets' for me.

Well, my 4 Cornish crosses really are chickens, not just fatty lumps. I wasn't sure for a couple of days. They are doing great, exploring more, and their poos aren't any grosser than normal now. You know what's weird? They have pink legs. The other 3 left at the feed store (AZ Country Feeds on Ruthrauff/Frontage Rd for Cityfarm) had yellow legs, and all the others I've raised have had the bright yellow legs. I picked these 4 because they were female and a bit smaller than the other 3. And the 3 bigger ones were markedly weaker with leg issues. I'm wondering if the pink legs are a different batch from the yellow legs. I could call the feed store, but I'd just get an annoyed teen who wouldn't want to look through the order records and I'm too lazy to even put in a phone call. I'll just ponder about it here.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Could very well be male. I've never tried to sex them. Still think it looks like a youngish spider, though. I'm surprised you haven't encountered them. They've been in most of the houses I've lived in in Tucson. Central, foothills, southwest. These are active, hunting spiders. Definitely not sedentary. They roam around a lot. They don't just move when looking for mates. They are shy and good at hiding in the daytime. They can flatten out and fit into tiny crevices. I tend to see them in the evening. I don't spray pesticides either. Before I closed on my house in central Tucson it was tented and fumigated for drywood termites. Killed everything. By the time I moved out ten years later I had a thriving population of crab spiders and geckos. I'm much more tolerant of crab spiders than other spiders in the house, because the crab spiders do not build webs. Anything that eats bugs and doesn't make me clean more often is okay by me.

Spiders are very easy to sex. Look at the two appendages at the very front of the spider--the (generally) shorter ones that are not legs, they are called the pedipalps. These are the male sexual organs (but not in the female). During development the tips get bulbous in the male, while remaining relatively slender in the female. Before maturation they will be relatively smooth and colored like the rest of the body but after the final molt, they become highly specialized sperm transfer devices with very species-specific sclerites that will appear darkish brown (differences in the morphology of pedipalps is how we differentiate closely related species). Sedentary is relative, if you were to follow an individual spider around, they do not move very far at all from day to day. After dispersal from the egg sac most spiders remain very close to where they hunt and move only occasionally to new sites. At maturation males of most species cease foraging and eat only opportunistically (or not at all) and spend most of their time searching for mates. While I don't know if data are available for the giant crab spiders, one could easily assume that the difference in distance males move around before and after maturation is very significant. That's not to say they don't move some distance each night in their foraging forays. This coming from someone who has individually marked hundreds of thousands of spiders and followed them over their lives in their natural settings. These developmental changes in palp morphology and movement patterns are central features of spider biology.

I have not seen them here in the city.

Maybe because I lived right behind all the businesses on 4th Ave. and I know they sprayed constantly. Right now I only have a couple neighbors on either side of me that spray. Hopefully someday I can convince them not to. We have a thriving population of cellar spiders (Crossoprisa lyoni) around under the eaves on our back patio, along with the geckos we consider them our last line of defense before insects can enter the house. Judging by their numbers, they do a great job!

 

[a little chiken]

I've used pesticides every few years against ants. I hate using poison since I have geckos, horned lizards, and tarantulas and love them, but I hate ants pouring out of my ceiling more than I love my geckos. And I just bought Amdro granules for the leafcutters. I'm sick of them denuded everything. So far, it's either working or this year hasn't been a bad leafcutter year. Certainly a horrid fly year. Or, maybe that's a great fly year...so many of them this year.

And haha, I loved having geckos keeping me company in my kitchen till I found lizard poo in my utensils. NOT AMUSING. No more lizard 'pets' for me.

Well, my 4 Cornish crosses really are chickens, not just fatty lumps. I wasn't sure for a couple of days. They are doing great, exploring more, and their poos aren't any grosser than normal now. You know what's weird? They have pink legs. The other 3 left at the feed store (AZ Country Feeds on Ruthrauff/Frontage Rd for Cityfarm) had yellow legs, and all the others I've raised have had the bright yellow legs. I picked these 4 because they were female and a bit smaller than the other 3. And the 3 bigger ones were markedly weaker with leg issues. I'm wondering if the pink legs are a different batch from the yellow legs. I could call the feed store, but I'd just get an annoyed teen who wouldn't want to look through the order records and I'm too lazy to even put in a phone call. I'll just ponder about it here.

I have not had leaf cutter until this last monsoon rain and now NO MORE leaves on my watermelon vines. I am so sad. Do you have luck with raising the cornish crosses? I am going to breed a NN hen to a very lg rooster. Not sure what he is but his head comes to my knee. I know they will take longer to grow but I am hoping no leg issues.

 

[rockmissjess]

MY LITTLE BOY AND OUR BARRED ROCK (CHARLOTTE) SURE DO LOVE EACH OTHER) shes been sooo weird since she started laying... very cuddly

 

[a little chiken]

Spiders are very easy to sex. Look at the two appendages at the very front of the spider--the (generally) shorter ones that are not legs, they are called the pedipalps. These are the male sexual organs (but not in the female). During development the tips get bulbous in the male, while remaining relatively slender in the female. Before maturation they will be relatively smooth and colored like the rest of the body but after the final molt, they become highly specialized sperm transfer devices with very species-specific sclerites that will appear darkish brown (differences in the morphology of pedipalps is how we differentiate closely related species). Sedentary is relative, if you were to follow an individual spider around, they do not move very far at all from day to day. After dispersal from the egg sac most spiders remain very close to where they hunt and move only occasionally to new sites. At maturation males of most species cease foraging and eat only opportunistically (or not at all) and spend most of their time searching for mates. While I don't know if data are available for the giant crab spiders, one could easily assume that the difference in distance males move around before and after maturation is very significant. That's not to say they don't move some distance each night in their foraging forays. This coming from someone who has individually marked hundreds of thousands of spiders and followed them over their lives in their natural settings. These developmental changes in palp morphology and movement patterns are central features of spider biology.

I have not seen them here in the city.

Maybe because I lived right behind all the businesses on 4th Ave. and I know they sprayed constantly. Right now I only have a couple neighbors on either side of me that spray. Hopefully someday I can convince them not to. We have a thriving population of cellar spiders (Crossoprisa lyoni) around under the eaves on our back patio, along with the geckos we consider them our last line of defense before insects can enter the house. Judging by their numbers, they do a great job!

I very much appreciate all your wealth of knowledge you share with all of us. Thank you Gallo.

. I love that we can all learn so much from one another.

 

[City farm]

Hi Dave

 

[City farm]

I am new to BYC so if I break the rules, feel free to correct me. Thanks to K9Dave for bringing me onboard. I live in Queen Creek AZ and build chicken coops and raise chickens. I have 5 flocks., Lavender Americanas, Golden Marans, Cream Legbars, Bielefelders and Blue Wheatons.  The LA's and Wheaton's are juvies yet and the Beilefelders are just about to start laying. I have Marans and Legbars in the incubator. If all goes well I will be hatching about 125 chicks a week. Shipping will be available as well as local pickup. Prices will vary, depending on age and breed. Greenfire sells their Bielefelders for $50 for a day old hen. My stock is from Greenfire. PM me if you'd like to talk about birds or coops. on Facebook at chickenwerks and my web site is www.chickenwerksaz.com  

I did try to look at your web site with no luck.. It was a black background..