Arizona Chickens

[Arizonachicken]

Thanks, everyone! I'm still looking for a home for him.

 

[ChicksOfHazzard]

My girls are suspicious of new foods to, untill one tries it. I take a bit and then they try it. They wondered about watermelon, I put it to my mouth and they got the idea. Now I have introduced so many foods that they wait a while until one try's it.

Is this true with meal worms as well??

 

[pipemum]

Desertmarcy, your birds are so, so beautiful! I wish I had room for one of your barred rocks!

 

[City farm]

Hi y'all I live a couple miles outside of Tombstone. I have turkeys but I love all birds!! I am planning to get some chickens in the future. So far my turkeys have done okay but we are up above 4,000 feet so we do not get as hot as some places. I put a shade cloth over my turkeys and mist them a couple times a day and they have been doing great so far. I am happy to see so many Arizona people here!!

Yes, we all love our chickens.. I still think "an egg a day" is such a blessing! Plus we love sharing with others & educating them on our chickens.
If we had more room here in Tempe we would love a turkey ..
WELCOME to BACK YARD CHICKEN +

 

[mckenzy]

One of our happy AZ Chickens peeps has a bunch of pullets and chicks for sale. I was interested in two of his Marans. Didn't know if anyone was also interested so maybe we could work out a way of picking the little ones up in a carpool type situation instead of everyone driving all the way out to Tucson.

PM me for more info.

 

[mckenzy]

Being new to chickening and even newer to composting, the idea has me very interested.
Anybody here work with a "home" or "family" compost pile? I would like to stop wasting and start using my food waste!

I have a family of 4 and foster dogs coming out of my ears, 4 young chickens and two tortoise youngsters who live outside (ones gone missing again!)

What are the DO AND DONT of composting with chickens? The article here is great but it seems to assume you already know the basics. I could read up on it but I'd rather get an Arizona perspective on this topic since we have such a funky climate to deal with.

I have the perfect corner where I'd like to make my compost pile, and the end use would be for my small 5x8 foot garden.

Thanks guys!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote: This is how I do it, too. I don't even use the pliers unless I can't get a good hold with my fingers. Last night I took off the spurs on one of my boys. They were right at 2.5" long. One was very straight except the tip was turned (like a longhorn steer's), and hte other was curved throughout the length. I needed the pliers for the straight one, but was able to hold the curved one with my fingers. I've never had anyone bother the birds when I've removed spurs, but that may be becuase the leg and foot feathers largely hide them. I will say that as the bird gets older, the remaining portion does continue to get a bit longer each year.

 

[pipemum]

Being new to chickening and even newer to composting, the idea has me very interested.
Anybody here work with a "home" or "family" compost pile? I would like to stop wasting and start using my food waste!

I have a family of 4 and foster dogs coming out of my ears, 4 young chickens and two tortoise youngsters who live outside (ones gone missing again!)

What are the DO AND DONT of composting with chickens? The article here is great but it seems to assume you already know the basics. I could read up on it but I'd rather get an Arizona perspective on this topic since we have such a funky climate to deal with.

I have the perfect corner where I'd like to make my compost pile, and the end use would be for my small 5x8 foot garden.

Thanks guys!

The only thing I'm doing differently with my compost pile and chickens is being more careful with all of the plastic crap that ends up in the compost. Those stupid little fruit/veggie code stickers, the millions of tiny hairbands that my daughter leaves around (I compost my vacuum stuff--usually massive amounts of dog hair...and those dang hair bands)--all that gets sorted out where before I didn't really care too much if some trash ended up in the compost. No meat or dairy.

I have 2 compost piles now--one in a big black composter, and a open air one made out of 3 pallets. Both need to be wetted down frequently at my house. The open air compost is chicken related--coop rakings and such. The black composter holds all of my garden and kitchen scraps, and vacuum and dryer lint leavings. It needs to be turned at least once a month, otherwise it becomes stagnant and I start finding cockroaches. Cockroaches are the cue that I need to water and/or stir the compost, yuck. I do end up with nice compost, but I'm not sure it ever gets hot enough--seeds sprout from my compost when I use it. Sometimes I add a little wood ash from the chimenera.

Composting seems pretty simple, though there are some people at work science it up, which is fine but a little too much for me. The bare minimum works for my compost! Throw stuff in, water it, stir it up every once in a while!

 

[Timskins]

Do you guys put food and water inside you coop and your run? Or will just putting it in the run be good enough? Didn't know if they got up for midnight snacks and would need any inside the coop.

 

[Twinklin]

I have 2 compost bins, One is a large trashcan with holes drilled in it and the other is a plastic barrel on a stand that turns. I make sure both stay a bit damp and turn them every 1-2 weeks. I only do grass clippings, pine shavings, chicken poo, shredded paper, and fruit and veggie scraps that the chickens don't eat like rinds. We only have 4 chickens so I don't worry about the ammonia levels but from what I understand having a lot of chicken poop can kill your plants if you don't let it sit for an extended period. If I had more chickens I'd probably make sure I filled bin 1, let it sit for six months while only adding to bin 2, and 6 months later use the content of bin 1 and then stop adding to bin 2 so it can sit for 6 months, rinse repeat.