Arizona Chickens

[City farm]

so i think the girls are going through something... not sure what. maybe its the humidity, maybe they're molting, or maybe they're just mad i havent made a proper nesting box since they keep destroying them. 1 egg in 2 days from 5 hens.
today i let everyone out to play nice in the puddles. (i have 2 different pens, plus 4 regular all around the yard chickens) one of my older hens was standing like a flamingo on the patio, one leg tucked, falling asleep. then another hen, ginger, stood straight in front of her and puffed up about twice her normal size, like you would see a broody do. i thought maybe she was ready to attack. then, crack... she dropped an egg, right on the patio. i stared, my daughter stared, ginger turned around and stared. it was the strangest thing.  five minutes later she passed part of a yolk and some albumen, and then THAT was the strangest thing. then everyone ran to taste it and i grabbed the hose. :/

Love these kind of stories.. Same here hardly any eggs. They are all in on this togheter.. Could be the weather?
Do you guys use hay in your coop or run? We have been using hay, love it to add to the compost.. I might need to go to
a feed store somewhere in the east valley.. Tempe only sells the small bag. I got a hug bail of hay in chandler or Gilbert.
I was at a wrestling match, had to wait for like an hour so I asked a local if there was a feed store.. Sure enough just down
the road.. Anyone have a favorite hay or closest feed store to me?

 

[pipemum]

The Big Sky feed I buy has fishmeal in it, and it smelled horrid when I first started fermenting. Once I got a really good brew going, though, it drastically cut down the smell. I mean, if you're holding a cup of, it still smells, but it isn't making my entire shop smell like vomit. I would stick with it and keep the fishmeal around.

Alright, I'll keep it going. I really love this new feed (maybe it is Big Sky?? It's the organic/non GMO feed from the Tucson Organic Co-op). Just checked their webpage, yes, it is Big Sky. I could smell the fish as soon as I wetted the feed every morning, but that was just fishy. The fermented fishy odor is so bad...but if it gets down to slightly stinky sourdough smell, I can handle it. Speaking of which, I need to refresh the sourdough starter in my fridge.

Demosthine, you've recently gotten the rabbits, right? For meat? I've convinced my husband to go down the meat rabbit hole. It was much easier than convincing him to try chickens (he's still annoyed that we gotten zero eggs so far). I think we'll get started in the next year or so. I need shade and an outlet to get started, and that is seriously lacking at my house (we don't have a covered patio, nor any working outlets outside of the house). I need an electrical outlet, because I'd like to keep the rabbits cooled during the summer. We're looking at an AZ room, patio overhaul sometime soon.

 

[Demosthine]

Demosthine, you've recently gotten the rabbits, right? For meat? I've convinced my husband to go down the meat rabbit hole. It was much easier than convincing him to try chickens (he's still annoyed that we gotten zero eggs so far). I think we'll get started in the next year or so. I need shade and an outlet to get started, and that is seriously lacking at my house (we don't have a covered patio, nor any working outlets outside of the house). I need an electrical outlet, because I'd like to keep the rabbits cooled during the summer. We're looking at an AZ room, patio overhaul sometime soon.

Yes, we got our first two rabbits a few months ago and they have done absolutely swell so far in the heat. They are left to free-range outside just like our chickens, without a cage or designated water source. They appear to be drinking out of the same container and watering nipples that the chickens do. They are loving all of the fresh bermuda grass that is growing and downright turn their noses up at the timothy hay when I tried providing it. I think the chickens ate more of it than they did. I trim excess branches off my tree out front and throw them in the back yard. The poultry eat some too, but it's primarily the rabbits. They'll gnaw away all day at them. I do provide supplemental pellets, but it takes several days for them to go through a cup of it. They eat the vegetables we throw out periodically, and they always choose them versus the fruit. It was comical trying to watch them jump through the rod-iron fence with a big celery stick in their mouths. They never did figure that one out! There is a pile of older brown leaves that they eat, too. I don't remember where I read it, but it's important for them to have the brown, dry leaves also. I think it was because the fiber content differs significantly once it all dies, but I could be wrong.

Don't worry about cooling them during summer. Just make sure they have adequate shade and they'll be fine. Something as simple as a medium size bush works well. Through the hottest parts of the day, they have never been found laying on the porch, in the buckets of water, nor in front of the box fan we had going. They stayed beneath our huge oleander bushes right along the block fence until late afternoon, and would come out to feed and everything from 1600 Hours and on. I sincerely think rabbit keeping is another one of those cases where people are over-thinking their husbandry. She isn't the pretty white of a show rabbit, but I just consider it "critter camo," to protect her from the predators.

We only have two or three spots where they've burrowed slightly, but nothing remotely close to significant. The doe, if she really is pregnant, should start nesting this week and kindle her kits right around the 15th. I can't feel anything inside her, but her vent had been open and swollen. After mating, it appears to have completely closed and is a very pale skin color now. Time will tell. If she does birth, it will be a small clutch.

And yes, the end goal is having a great meat supply.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
It's not the foot traffic or dog nails that seem to be the issue; it is the backing on throw rugs.

 

[Demosthine]

It's not the foot traffic or dog nails that seem to be the issue; it is the backing on throw rugs.

Hmm, now you have me wondering what the back of a throw rug is like, since I've never had any. I would think it would be like the back of a cross stitch canvas or similar. Even the back of my living room carpet isn't rough enough that I would be concerned about damage. Could you lay a thin piece of carpet padding beneath it to decrease the abrasiveness? Or I know they sell special rug pads to prevent slipping and such. I don't recall any damage on my Grandparents' hardwood floors. Maybe it varies drastically by brand?

 

[redrocketrooster]

When a female is ready she'll be dark red or purple if she's littered before. Her vent will open if she isnt pregnant as early as 2 days if she isn't pregnant. I bet your girl is carrying.
Palpitating for kits can be done as early as one week but its easiest to feel at day 10-12.

If the kits are for meat I suggest alfalfa hay. It will boost growth and mom will be able to yield more milk. Bucks that don't have more than five girls to breed tend to fatten with alfalfa. Those extra calories do wonders for growers and moms tho.


We'll weve received our last HOA warning for the chickens. No more for us....my pullets are free to BYC members. Just pm me if you can come grab em.

 

[pipemum]

Hmm, now you have me wondering what the back of a throw rug is like, since I've never had any. I would think it would be like the back of a cross stitch canvas or similar. Even the back of my living room carpet isn't rough enough that I would be concerned about damage. Could you lay a thin piece of carpet padding beneath it to decrease the abrasiveness? Or I know they sell special rug pads to prevent slipping and such. I don't recall any damage on my Grandparents' hardwood floors. Maybe it varies drastically by brand?

Some floor rugs have a slightly sticky backing to keep them in place. If the stained concrete were poorly done, then the sticky backing could lift the stain up. Or maybe the offgassing from the backing could be discoloring the stain. We have bamboo flooring, which seems to be somewhat easily scratched. Our worst scratching is in my daughter's room--she'll dump her shoes out on the "rug" (alphabet rubber type squares), the little pebbles and sand get trapped under the play mat and then, yeah, scratches from the abrasion.

Gallo, my best friend had a company stain her concrete floor. The company poured a thin layer of concrete with the stain mixed in it on her existing concrete pad. That solves the issue of poor staining, but raises a new issue of cracking or whole patches of concrete coming up if it was a crappy pour. Her floor looked great--no cracking and it looked brand new till the day she moved out.

I don't think free ranging rabbits is going to work in my yard. The chickens are in the garden area, and create plenty of havoc already. Rabbits would equal no garden, and I'm not ready to give up my veggies. I have 3 dogs in the rest of the yard, and 2 of them would destroy a big fat rabbit. I don't want to overly complicate keeping rabbits, but I think I'm fine with a cage system for them. I think I'm going to take a rabbit husbandry class from Horrid Hares... a class on November 16th here in Tucson. Same day there is a processing class, but it's pricey and I can clean and gut an animal without a class.

Oh, ha, it's not Horrid Hares. Hostile Hare. Anyone heard anything about this person/group out of the Phoenix area?

 

[Demosthine]

When a female is ready she'll be dark red or purple if she's littered before. Her vent will open if she isnt pregnant as early as 2 days if she isn't pregnant. I bet your girl is carrying.
Palpitating for kits can be done as early as one week but its easiest to feel at day 10-12.

If the kits are for meat I suggest alfalfa hay. It will boost growth and mom will be able to yield more milk. Bucks that don't have more than five girls to breed tend to fatten with alfalfa. Those extra calories do wonders for growers and moms tho.


We'll weve received our last HOA warning for the chickens. No more for us....my pullets are free to BYC members. Just pm me if you can come grab em.

Yeah, I've tried a few times, but I just don't feel anything. I'll have to find a small batch of alfalfa to see if she'll even eat it. My regular hay bales last forever, so I'd hate to add an alfalfa bale to it, too. I have three bales still sitting on the side of the house.

I'll message you on the pullets. We may be interested. It's an absolute shame, though! We specifically looked for places without an HOA. Fortunately, my parents already lived in a community we fell in love with so it was an extremely easy fit. I think they should be outlawed, though. Horrible, horrible ideas.

 

[desertmarcy]

Gallo, my best friend had a company stain her concrete floor. The company poured a thin layer of concrete with the stain mixed in it on her existing concrete pad. That solves the issue of poor staining, but raises a new issue of cracking or whole patches of concrete coming up if it was a crappy pour. Her floor looked great--no cracking and it looked brand new till the day she moved out.

Pipemum, do you have the name of the company? How long ago did they do the work? Was it in Tucson? I have a lot of old (1950's) concrete patios that are sorely in need of touching up.
PM me if you would. I might easily miss a reply on this thread. Thanks.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Gallo, my best friend had a company stain her concrete floor. The company poured a thin layer of concrete with the stain mixed in it on her existing concrete pad. That solves the issue of poor staining, but raises a new issue of cracking or whole patches of concrete coming up if it was a crappy pour. Her floor looked great--no cracking and it looked brand new till the day she moved out.

I've seen some videos of that process. I worked as a mason tender for many years putting myself through college and we did a lot of concrete pouring in addition to fireplaces and other brick/block work. I know just enough about it to know that I shouldn't tackle that.

The finished products generally look fantastic, but I'm still a bit skeptical about the long-term durability with that process. I've only seen a few nightmare stories about it, but I'm surprised there aren't more. My father is a big time builder up in MI and he thought it was a crazy thing to do when I asked him (although he doesn't really have direct experience with that so I took his advice with a grain of salt). I wonder if they've worked out potential problems with the process? We do pretty much everything on the house by ourselves, so hiring out to do it really isn't much of an option. We did hire someone to do our complicated glass backsplash in the kitchen, and boy, was I glad for that!