Arizona Chickens

[Lynn77]

I was wondering if Gold Stars would do good in our heat? Also if they are available in Arizona?

 

[Diannastarr]

We put coolers in our coops & have a fan on all the time on our cooler cooled covered back porch ,my girls spend the day napping & eating treats, they can always go out to free range and they do that to till dark, having chickens in AZ is the best , no smell & no wet poo around its all dry and hassle free by days end , good luck with your peeps ,you can always make them ice water & put up a shade tarp for them ,im bad at typing so, found this for you on you tube & they have more info on there so just look around , 117 degrees in Phoenix and my chickens are cool, 2013.

take care have a good one Dianna

 

[azchickens14]

Hello everyone! So I've noticed more flies around outside (nothing outrageous, just higher numbers). I keep the run and coop clean, but of course they still find the fresh poop the girls put out during the day. :/ I was wondering if there are any fly traps available that would capture/kill the flies yet still allow me to feed them back to the girls for extra protein? Any thoughts?

 

[DesertChic]

I have a butchering question....If I just want to section the carcass into parts, do I still need to go through the process of yanking out all the intestines and such, or can I just "filet" the meat off the carcass and not worry about the rest?

I've only butchered and prepared whole chicken so far, and only three cockerels to date. I'm still adjusting to this.

 

[azmike2047]

i have butchered other animals, and with chickens i think youll get cleaner meat if you just take out the innards first. instead they will be flopping all around in there, and make a mess, possibility of spoiling the meat.

 

[MagicChicken]

I have a butchering question....If I just want to section the carcass into parts, do I still need to go through the process of yanking out all the intestines and such, or can I just "filet" the meat off the carcass and not worry about the rest?

I've only butchered and prepared whole chicken so far, and only three cockerels to date. I'm still adjusting to this.

If you are going to be parting out the carcass, try cutting out the backbone before gutting the bird. You will need a good set of poultry shears to do it well. Start at the neck end and cut along the spine to the tail end. Then repeat the cut on the other side of the spine. Remove the backbone. Turn the bird upside down and dump out the guts. You may have to cut around the vent to fully separate the guts from the carcass, but this is easy to do when the guts are hanging down, already outside the bird.

The first time I tried to process a young cockerel I understood why wide-set legs are part of the Standard for so many breeds. Had quite a time trying to maneuver my hand inside to pull out his guts!

Save the backbone for soup!

 

[DesertChic]

If you are going to be parting out the carcass, try cutting out the backbone before gutting the bird. You will need a good set of poultry shears to do it well. Start at the neck end and cut along the spine to the tail end. Then repeat the cut on the other side of the spine. Remove the backbone. Turn the bird upside down and dump out the guts. You may have to cut around the vent to fully separate the guts from the carcass, but this is easy to do when the guts are hanging down, already outside the bird.

The first time I tried to process a young cockerel I understood why wide-set legs are part of the Standard for so many breeds. Had quite a time trying to maneuver my hand inside to pull out his guts!

Save the backbone for soup!

Thank you so much! And I know what you mean about the advantage of wide-set legs. The second cockerel I processed was very narrow and I barely got my hand inside him. It actually made me feel better about having culled him instead of letting him breed.

 

[DesertChic]

My Bielefelders and NN Turkens just experienced their first monsoon rain. The same birds that run screeching from the garden hose stood out in the rain and got soaked instead of going into their respective coops. I'm just hoping none of the develop any kind of illness now.

 

[City farm]

Hello everyone! So I've noticed more flies around outside (nothing outrageous, just higher numbers). I keep the run and coop clean, but of course they still find the fresh poop the girls put out during the day. :/ I was wondering if there are any fly traps available that would capture/kill the flies yet still allow me to feed them back to the girls for extra protein? Any thoughts?

We use fly preditors from Spalding labs.. A big difference.. I would not feed dried up fly's to chciken's they carry tapeworm.. Duck's eat fly's & Muscovy's duck's will eat small rodents ..

 

[MagicChicken]

Quote:
I get my fly predators from Arbico. They are located in Oro Valley, so it is a local company. This is my first year on the program. They send me a batch of "fly eliminators" every four weeks. I just put out my third batch for the year. So far so good. Hardly any flies compared with last year, even though I have way more chickens than last year. 54 chickens at the moment, compared with 12 the year before. Fly eliminators ROCK!

Arbico's Fly Eliminators: http://www.arbico-organics.com/category/fly-control-program