Arizona Chickens

[Sonoran Silkies]

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I don;t remember for sure if it was the kind of backing you describe or the rubberized kind that prevents the rug from slipping/skidding across the floor. I'm thinking it might have been the later, though.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

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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.

That's a bummer. I assume it is against the CC&Rs?

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

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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!

The process sounds a great deal like the stamped concrete process, where you colour the concrete, pour a thinish layer and then stamp it to look like flagstone or bricks or such. I've seen good jobs and poor ones, and that's just talking about the looks afterwards, not whether it is a structurally good job. The shopping center at coffee shop we frequent had it done a few years ago and it seems to be holding up well, but the appearance is not near as nice as it should have been--smeared stamping of brick patterns or double stamped, but not lines up properly.

 

[MagicChicken]

If I designed my dream house, stained concrete would be the preferred flooring type. We painted our enclosed porch with concrete paint, and that has not held up well to traffic...mainly large dog traffic, plus they track in lots of dirt and sand to etch away at the paint. Staining would have probably held up better, but we went with the cheaper and less time intensive option.

I'm so impatiently waiting for eggs. 21 week EE is ready, the other not so much. One of the 18 week barred rocks is getting red now too.

I think I need to manage my compost better. I mentioned a while back that I didn't really take too much care of my compost and it still produced nice, rich compost? Still true, but this weekend I was turning it, and I found an ant colony, grubs, and a HUGE centipede living in the compost. It's not getting hot enough to deter pests. I also found a bunch of plastics and non-degradables that have snuck in (via the vacuum bag, I'm sure). I keep a separate chicken coop compost that is primarily chicken poop, sand, and pine shavings...and I dug through that and it also had a ton of grubs, though the bottom stuff was fairly well broken down (and I've only had chickens since May).

I'm not sure what my point is regarding compost, but I feed the grubs to my chickens, and whoo boy, that was fun.

Try mixing a bunch of that chicken poo into the compost pile. My compost pile never heated up much and had lots of bugs (which the chickens adore). Then one day I mucked out the deep litter and added it to the pile all at once. Several wheelbarrows of the stuff. Mixed chicken poo and pine shavings that had built up for quite a while. I wet it down between each wheelbarrow load. The next day the pile was so hot I was concerned about spontaneous combustion! I could feel the heat from a few feet away and it was over 100 degrees out at the time. Yikes... I turned it a lot and wet it down a lot and a few weeks later it is turning into the best compost ever. The chickens are disappointed at the lack of bugs. The garden will be thrilled.

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Well done stained or dyed concrete floors are fantastic. Much easier to clean than tile and when done well they look great. The best looking concrete floors are the ones that were initially poured to be a stained (or dyed) floor. I think the dyed ones turn out better, with the dye mixed into the wet concrete prior to pouring. But stain can work well if you know what you are doing. Practice the technique somewhere where it won't show, until you can reproduce the effect you want. Closet floors and storage rooms are good for that. Be forewarned: if you have cracks or tack holes in the existing floors they will show up - a lot - no matter how well you think you've patched them. The patches seem to take up the stain at a different rate from the original floor.

I've seen a lot of dyed, stamped concrete floors that are supposed to look like flagstone and just... don't. Fake flagstone can be really tacky looking. Stick with flat floors and don't try to make it look like something it isn't and you should be fine. If you don't like the results you can always go back later and pour a thin, dyed layer of concrete over it. Or tile it.

Disclaimer: I've used dye in wet concrete for a patio area but have never tried to refinish an existing slab with stain or dye. I do see a lot of houses as part of my work.

Good luck with the floor project! We will have to have another BYC potluck at your place when it is done, hint... hint...

 

[maryhysong]

Well some of the April hatched pullets are laying, this pic is not quite the right color, but close


Not sure who's laying yet, but several girls are for sale; sisters to the ones City Farms got. The tan egg is probably from one of the two single combed girls in the batch. These girls are EExEE, EExWelsummer and EExWelsummer/leghorn cross.

PM me for details if you are interested.

 

[cbnovick]

Well some of the April hatched pullets are laying, this pic is not quite the right color, but close


Not sure who's laying yet, but several girls are for sale; sisters to the ones City Farms got. The tan egg is probably from one of the two single combed girls in the batch. These girls are EExEE, EExWelsummer and EExWelsummer/leghorn cross.

PM me for details if you are interested.

Nice pullet eggs, Mary

 

[notinoz2007]

this screams Make me into a chicken coop!

http://phoenix.craigslist.org/evl/zip/4058924239.html

 

[maryhysong]

Nice pullet eggs, Mary

Thanks Cindy! So hard to get the right color in a pic tho, they are a bit darker and the one on the right has tiny little freckles!

 

[Beckyhsinglsc]

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.

You have to get rid of all of your chickens!?

What do you have that you need to find homes for?

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

this screams Make me into a chicken coop!

http://phoenix.craigslist.org/evl/zip/4058924239.html

Oh yeah!