Arizona Chickens

[Sill]

I cut all mine back a couple of days ago so I could move them into the greenhouse before this last hard freeze. They were too tall to fit before. I have an oil-filled space heater that I run in the greenhouse at night when we get a hard freeze. @Sill maybe you are babying your Moringas too much. Plants will sometimes set seed when stressed, as a survival technique. I got lots of seed pods on mine and they weren't even a year old yet. I don't know if any got big enough to produce viable seed. If the seeds look good, I'll add them to the seed box. I still have the seed box here.

OK, how do you stress a tree? My big moringa is planted against a south facing wall. It gets irregular waterings and I rarely fertilize the bed that its in. Do I withhold water? Never fertilize?

 

[Sill]

BOYS BOYS BOYS!

One of my friends has some big beautiful Brahma roosters that need home.

These are some fancy birds in the rare gold laced and buff laced coloring out of Dan Powell lines.

If you are a Brahma breeder its a great chance to ad a prestigious bloodline and rare color.

Or if you just want a fancy eye candy docile rooster for your flock these guys are reasonably priced at $25 each.

I also have some rare breed roosters including German Biefelders, Swedish isbars (Green Egg Layers), Wheaton Ameraucana from show stock (blue egg layers), Golden Cuckoo Marans (Dark Brown egg layers) , British Creme Legbars (Blue Egg layers), Rare French Bresse, and Swedish Flower hens. Prices range from $10 to $50 depending on breed and age. I do have young hens to go with the boys if you want those as well.

Those are some beautiful roos! Great shots of them too.

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Thank you!! I will be trying this very soon!​

....speaking of chickens,,,,,
...........I need some more of @Timskins Modesto Mills Layer feed pellets for my chickens!
I love using it as it's very versatile, I'm able to ferment it and I'm also able to dump it into my treadle feeder for when I need to take my vacations! ..The crumbles for the chicks are great too and a higher protein supplement if you want to mix it with the layer feed.
Hooray!!

@sill and East Valley Chicken Folks

I am driving out there to pick up the Modesto Mills feed anyway so to those of you that need to buy some fresh chickens from @Timskins I'm happy to help bring some out for a few of us on the East Valley!
@desertmarcy feeds her birds this and they were all very nice looking and healthy Birds.

This is organic feed just FYI.

I'll be putting in my order soon. Yes it ferments well and the price is great for organic feed.

I know how you feel. I kept my chicken babies in my office, resulting in multiple comments of, "They're in your house????" My response was, "Where did you keep your kids when they were babies? In your garage?"

In all seriousness though, it's a little sad to me that doing things "the old fashioned way" is now considered to be so aberrant. I'll take homegrown food over store-bought and shrink-wrapped in plastic any day.

Have fun making that mayonnaise! You won't believe how much better it tastes than store bought.

The old fashioned way sure is aberrant these days. Most people don't care where their food comes from, and yet cancer rates are up.
My kids are getting used to the old fashioned way, My daughter helps me dispatch chickens when I need to process, so helpful since I can't do that part myself. You should see the looks she gets from her friends when she tells them she helps her mom butcher chickens.

 

[kpgoldstar]

The cement part of our patio is huge but the covered part is small. We don't want to fence the whole patio so we just put a couple of x-pens up around the covered portion. It keeps the chickens off the whole patio because they don't want to be out in the open but they can't get to the covered part. (Well, they could if they realized the dogs don't just appear, they go through a "doggie door" that we made by hanging a towel over the opening in the fence. lol.)
This way, if we have a pool party or something the chickens get put up and the fence easily comes down.

What is an x-pen?

 

[Sill]

I have never tried making mayo. Sounds easy enough that even I won't mess it up.

So...I have worked 8 years turning my side yard into a garden paradise. It is really lovely out there. I will now be turning it over to my dogs while I get the rest of my backyard to work on! I'm a bit devastated as the dogs will take maybe a week to destroy what I've worked so hard on, but heck, I get 5-6x the space to garden in and beautify now! I'll have a bigger garden, and the rest will be a mix of native plants and such. I can't wait. I've not been able to do much with the main backyard--my dogs are crazy plant and landscape destruction machines. I should have made the trade YEARS ago.

Well yeah for many times the working space! Though it will be hard to see your hard work destroyed. Maybe you can wire some plants off to keep them safe?

My ducks like to eat the ashes out of the firepit thing we have in the yard too. My ducks have gross poops all the time. I think I am going to give them some pro-biotics. sometimes they have solid but a lot they are messy.

I know nothing about ducks. Can they eat fermented feed? I know it helps chickens and quail have less messy poops.

 

[houdiniduck]

What is an x-pen?

http://www.amazon.com/Midwest-Exerc...?ie=UTF8&qid=1420694299&sr=8-1&keywords=x+pen

doggie playpen. I used mine to keep ducks in once. I have a top for mine too, they can go into squares and then a top sits on it.

 

[Sill]

The cement part of our patio is huge but the covered part is small. We don't want to fence the whole patio so we just put a couple of x-pens up around the covered portion. It keeps the chickens off the whole patio because they don't want to be out in the open but they can't get to the covered part. (Well, they could if they realized the dogs don't just appear, they go through a "doggie door" that we made by hanging a towel over the opening in the fence. lol.)
This way, if we have a pool party or something the chickens get put up and the fence easily comes down.

I love X-pens for keeping critters where you want 'em, and out of where you don't!

Something tried to dig under the pen again, second time since I reinforced the bottom with wire. There were 5 dig attempts along the 40-foot length. All foiled, but I sure wish I knew what it was. I need a game cam. I have been working on a new turkey pen for the last 3-4 weeks and sure will not put any birds in it until I get wire down around the outside and pour cement under the gate! Those two things plus splicing into the water line for an automatic waterer, and putting a roost up, and this pen is ready to go! This will be my 9th turkey pen

I'm gearing up to sell lots of poults this year and have many varieties to choose from.

Yikes! Those yummy birds are just so tempting. You got Fort Knox for pens but they sure work to keep your birds safe.

Wish we could do a turkey, but they are just too loud for the city. My neighbors already put up with a lot.

Hi, I'm in Prescott and wondering what breed people in AZ raise for meat. Has anyone successfully raised Cornish Cross Broilers with the hot summer? Also, does anyone have experience with using electro-net fences to keep out coyotes? Thanks!

Coturnix quail. They have excellent conversion of feed to meat, can take the heat, ready to process in 5-8 weeks, lay eggs at 6-8 weeks.

What is an x-pen?

Short for exercise pen. They are portable, available in different heights and easy to configure the panels into whatever shape you need. I stake them at the bottoms to make them steadier, it keeps the bigger dogs from knocking them over.

 

[houdiniduck]

No idea on the fermented feed thing, and oh man, x pens. We use ours in the house to keep the chihuahua out of the kitchen. I need to buy a couple more.

 

[Sill]

No idea on the fermented feed thing, and oh man, x pens. We use ours in the house to keep the chihuahua out of the kitchen. I need to buy a couple more.

Can always use more x-pens!

 

[desertmarcy]

OK, how do you stress a tree? My big moringa is planted against a south facing wall. It gets irregular waterings and I rarely fertilize the bed that its in. Do I withhold water? Never fertilize?

Both of the above will stress. Perhaps the bed had excellent soil when you planted and doesn't need fertilizer. I don't know for a fact that's why your's didn't set seed. Mine are all still in 5-gal containers. The roots were coming out the bottom drain holes. They were pulled up forcefully and moved because I had them in my covered garden and they were at the top of the wire. So perhaps mine were stressed by that and being somewhat root bound, IDK. All I know is, I had lots of seed pods. They were watered every day since they were in containers.

 

[ChuskaMtns]

New hen on the roost gifted from LKD to me I named here FeeFee to go with the black hen FuFoo they are both very sweet. She is my seventh broody

So cute! I love the names you pick and they fit them perfectly!