Arizona Chickens

[City farm]

Decided to bring the chicks inside and give the mama duck a chance to clean-preen and go to the bathroom-eat, but really a duck can’t raise chickens only hatch them.She’s been out doing it for 20 minutes. I’m holding the last egg in hopes that she will get back in there to hatch this out, no pipping or chirping from this last egg.

I’m only going to give it another three days and hopefully will have one more chick.

 

[BlueBaby]

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.

You could also start feeding them some of the all-flock, and then when the pullet's are starting to lay egg's, put a bowl or something of oyster shell out there for them. The girl's will eat the oyster shell as they need. You could also save your egg shells, and then crush them up for the hen's on the side instead of spending money on the oyster shell's.

Edit: Yes, you can make mush out of the smaller pieces of feed to get them to eat it.

 

[EmmaDonovan]

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...

Gorgeous! Do you mind if I ask what kind of budget you have for that coop? (If it's none of my business feel free to say so!)

 

[BigPil]

Gorgeous! Do you mind if I ask what kind of budget you have for that coop? (If it's none of my business feel free to say so!)

The coop and chicken project is actually just a small part of several other improvement projects I have begun on my property. The coop and run are going to cost around 12k. (This will be x 2 because there will be a twin coop and run for meat chickens later next year) I know this could be much much cheaper if I built the sheds on my own, but I absolutely do NOT go from a ladder to a roof top for anything! I‘ll be building the covered run on my own, but thats because its‘s easy frame from a ladder and to fasten metal roofing from a ladder between the rafters. Not so easy with a sheathed roof on the shed. So I am having Tuff Shed put up the two 8x24 sheds and another storage shed so I have a place to to store garden equipment and start indoor sprouts etc...

Unfortunately, that‘s not even half of what everything else that is being done is going to cost. . The materials for my raised gardens beds are going to be around 2500, alone. That doesn‘t even include soil. I need to have that brought in too as the soil here is all nasty rocks and caliche, laden with evil thorny things. I could go on and on with what is getting done over the next year, but it gives me heartburn...(and pocket burn).

 

[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 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.

How does your open run do with the monsoons? I considered a smaller covered area and just a larger run covered with HC and shade cloth, but I am worried about it turning into mess that I don’t want to deal with after the common and not so common deluges we can get here.

 

[City farm]

The coop and chicken project is actually just a small part of several other improvement projects I have begun on my property. The coop and run are going to cost around 12k. (This will be x 2 because there will be a twin coop and run for meat chickens later next year) I know this could be much much cheaper if I built the sheds on my own, but I absolutely do NOT go from a ladder to a roof top for anything! I‘ll be building the covered run on my own, but thats because its‘s easy frame from a ladder and to fasten metal roofing from a ladder between the rafters. Not so easy with a sheathed roof on the shed. So I am having Tuff Shed put up the two 8x24 sheds and another storage shed so I have a place to to store garden equipment and start indoor sprouts etc...

Unfortunately, that‘s not even half of what everything else that is being done is going to cost. . The materials for my raised gardens beds are going to be around 2500, alone. That doesn‘t even include soil. I need to have that brought in too as the soil here is all nasty rocks and caliche, laden with evil thorny things. I could go on and on with what is getting done over the next year, but it gives me heartburn...(and pocket burn).

If I can make a suggestion, weather king is cheaper & uses larger trusses.

 

[City farm]

How does your open run do with the monsoons? I considered a smaller covered area and just a larger run covered with HC and shade cloth, but I am worried about it turning into mess that I don’t want to deal with after the common and not so common deluges we can get here.

The shade cloths do get blown around but so far so good. It is time that I go out and tighten up with new rope. The umbrellas get taken down. If the bird netting gets ripped, I just replace.

 

[igorsMistress]

Finally going to start my chicken hobby this week! Coop is going to be finished by January so I'm going to start with some chicks so that the coop will be done by the time they are ready to transition outside. There's a local shop that sells chicks and will take back any that are not pullets and they have 3 varieties right now.
I want to start off with 6 and see how I do from there, but I have a few questions. Is it better off to get a few of each breed or can I do 1 of each? I didn't see any for sale in the forum, do people usually sell their chicks? and if so do they take back any that aren't pullets. If I were to get the 3 types now and add later, how hard is it to introduce younger chickens?

Hi there. In my experience it’s pretty easy to add chicks later but when they start becoming competition for resources you’ll see a bit of pecking and chasing here and there. It’s good to introduce them very young, my chicks are outside in a separate coop where the bigs can see them but not get to them at a day or two old. I let them all out together when the chicks are four weeks old. They are fast enough to escape the bigs and always have a safe space to retreat to that the bigs can’t get into. You can mix up the breeds or have them all the same, it’s up to you. I suggest you build your coop bigger than you think you’ll need because chicken math absolutely happens. Best of luck to you on your new adventure!

 

[igorsMistress]

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.

Very nice! My coop is 8x12 and I love that I can walk inside. I’d like to suggest simplicity in design on the inside. Easier to clean in general and that’s really nice when it’s hot as outside.

 

[BigPil]

If I can make a suggestion, weather king is cheaper & uses larger trusses.

That was a thought as I already have another weatherking shed with a gambrel roof on the other side of my property. But I hate how they are on the skids and I am leaning toward a concrete pad instead of a wood floor. Plus, they don‘t do single sloped roofs.