Arizona Chickens

[City farm]

Do you happen to know what 3 varieties that they have? @City farm just hatched out some chick's that she doesn't want to keep.

I think I am going to sell some of our hens & keep these little ones. Lorraine the momma duck might turn out to be a good momma. Plus 1/2 will most likely be dudes. And again Imforgot to post a photo on the last response, here is the 4. 2 more are hatched, 1 green egg left. I did candle the 2 left & one was not viable. This little black one is from Cindy the Silverlaced English Orpington.

 

[City farm]

The SO was impatient. So we ended up getting 7 . They had black star, golden star, black austerlorp, production red, easter eggers, and barred rock. Do you know what kind of chicks she had?

Ours are barnyard mix, still waiting on one to hatch.

 

[City farm]

Hello from PA. I just thought would check in. My flock is doing good. Moved the turkins to the coop with the big ones last weekend and they are adjusting well.
Big news is we are expecting over a foot of snow tomorrow. I can’t wait to see what the silkies think of it lol.
Hope all is well with you all!

Hi, thanks for checking in. It does look like you will be getting more than a foot of snow. Show us photos of your flock in the snow.

 

[City farm]

Good morning AZ. So I have decided to set the number of layers to begin with, at 20. I’m still leaning toward BA’s, until someone talks me out of it... heh. Will be building an 8x24 shed to include an 8x14 coop and 8x10 storage/misc room. (Brooder and chick raising room?) May go 8x16 for coop and 8x8 storage... not certain just yet. Attached to the coop will be a covered 12x24 run, and later I will add some additional run space without a roof in case of overcrowding.

Ive looked through tons of coop ideas and builds here on the forum and due to the hot/cold extremes here, my 1st coop will be sort of a combo open air/enclosed coop. Being 8x14 or 8x16, I will leave maybe a 6 or 8 foot opening on the broad side wall under the covered run for the hot months in the summer, and have a nice sliding barn style door to seal up the coop in the coldest months or really windy days. I‘m up on a hill and the wind gets ridiculous at times. I‘m working on drawing up the interior coop layout and storage area, but I played around with an exterior render of what I want to build. It’s pretty generic with just some basic textures and I will of course have other ventilation and real framing for the run and nice beefy HC barrier, shade cloth etc. But here’s what I stayed up all night doing...View attachment 2451388View attachment 2451389
Will share my layout plans as soon as I get them done too because I need to get rolling fast on this project. I was most inspired by @DobieLover and “The Mulligan“ coop layout. So I’ll be drawing some more after a lil nap.
Comments, advice, ideas and more are most welcomed for this noob as I feed my chicken fever.

Wow, love the windows. We have all open run with a small cover. The grapevines grow fast in the summer & provide a treat but die back so they can still sun bathe in the winter. I did plant a Arabian Lilac in the run that will give them a dark shade in the summer, which they have not tried to eat. Also have a Mexican elderberry in there that provides some shared that don’t eat as well. I have a huge shade cloth that covers part of the run. The one

photo is our front yard Arabian Lilac with some wild sunflowers still growing. The rest of the run is covered in bird netting & have some umbrellas for dark shade.

 

[City farm]

Ah! I didnt see that. I would love to have 1 or 2 of those, what do I do if one is a male though? Can't have a rooster in phx.

I have decided to keep them and sell 5-6 of our laying hens. If I did sell the ones that we have now they would have to all go as a flock, there is only 5 now, still waiting on 1 green egg to hatch.

 

[City farm]

Now that the new babies are here I had to move the silkies & Cochins out to another area so I can put the momma duck Lorraine with the new babies in the grow out pen. Here are the silkies/Cochins. The garden cart in the photo is what I would normally use for new babies. I put hardwire cloth on top so the older girls can see the new ones. Now it’s used as a play area for this young group. The screen is a old pool security screen, they can all see one another but are safe so they can flutter around and play. And of course their guard dog watching .

 

[BlueBaby]

@City farm That's about like me. Although I sometimes have people looking for chick's, I have to sell the chick's as unsexed as they are too young for me to know yet. Lately I have mostly been keeping them and growing them out until I can tell if they are a pullet or cockerel. That way I can pick a couple of the one's that I want to keep, and when someone does want a pullet I can sell them one that won't be a cockerel. I do give my cockerel's away for free though, and sometimes those go to be eaten.

 

[Geckolady]

The bag of 16% layer feed is getting low. The chickens eat the pellets and leave the broken down pellets, and there are a lot of those. Any tricks for getting them to eat the pellets that are broken down? Maybe adding water to make a mush?

Is 16% layer food the best thing for pullets who are not currently laying and a cockerel?

In reply to the post about not moving dead rabbits with a tool--The dogs love to play tug of war, and they'd probably have a blast playing with a dead rabbit. I also don't want whatever is eating the carcasses coming close to the house and coop, thinking this is a good place to get food. So I'm stuck with moving them if they die close to the house. If they're out in the field, I leave them alone.

 

[BigPil]

Lots of thought went into this! where in SW AZ are you--- do you get snow, or is it as hot as Phx? If it's very hot you might want to be able to open almost all of the long side into the run in summer. The slope of the roof looks like it'll handle a decent snow load. And you might want to put the garden (or duck run??) near the rain barrel, it'll fill up in no time.

I’m pretty much in Catalina, north of Tucson. Gets just as hot as Tucson in the summer and a bit colder in the winter. So I can easily plan to make a larger opening from the coop into the run for summer. We don‘t get much more than a dusting or 2 of snow every year. I am planning to get a garden set up as well sometime next year and depending on how well it goes with egg birds, I want to start raising meat birds too. Thats means a second, matching shed/coop later . The catch barrel was just for show, as I don’t know where to find all the fun stuff to add to 3d drawings. I haven‘t decided whether to bury a water cistern or just have some bigger above ground tanks. Don’t know about having ducks too, I think 20 plus chickens will be more than enough bird poop to start with. Haha.

 

[BigPil]

Wow, love the windows. We have all open run with a small cover. The grapevines grow fast in the summer & provide a treat but die back so they can still sun bathe in the winter. I did plant a Arabian Lilac in the run that will give them a dark shade in the summer, which they have not tried to eat. Also have a Mexican elderberry in there that provides some shared that don’t eat as well. I have a huge shade cloth that covers part of the run. The one View attachment 2451582View attachment 2451585photo is our front yard Arabian Lilac with some wild sunflowers still growing. The rest of the run is covered in bird netting & have some umbrellas for dark shade.

I love the grape vines running up the side of the run. Thats a great idea! And probably provides a nice bit of wind break too. Looks like I have something else to add to my growing want/to do list.