Arizona Chickens

[City farm]

Oh man, condolences from us ;( ugh.. You too? Shoot..
& X2! Don't feel guilty, I keep thinking like a farmer. It is just poultry...however it is hard when the chicken is a sweet girl.. Those are hard
to come by.. Our first flock was the sweetest, they always came when they saw me & when I would call.. Now the new ones are just learning
all of my language... I think I am going to get some meal worms.. I plan on feeding them by hand.. We will see..

Blondie should respond to "here, chick, chick!" Let me know. She'd always come running for treats when she heard me say that.

You are so funny, I love that you remember her name.. she really is so beautiful.. Her coloring is so different from any other
chicken we have had.. I can't wait to have my flock be one flock? Is that possible? Now that have done the old switch a-roo
with ours & adding single hens.. I must say they have been very quiet.. & of course I don't think it will stay that way..

However, our golden lakenvelder layed her first egg yesterday.. With that said glad she is not a roo.. Her comb & waddle are
much larger than I had expected..

 

[LadyKotaDoria]

It is going to be a really nice day here in the Valley......... Then the storm.

 

[LindaMurphy]

I'm so sorry. I have lost my favorite chicken to a coyote and it really sucks. She was just such a friendly little girl. She love to be snuggled. I had nursed her to health at one point and she became very attached to me and me to her as well. It broke my heart to find nothing but feathers left of her. Now my little Elvis has no mate. I am going to have to find him a couple little hens to put with him. Once I do I will separate the flocks so they will not interbreed with the others.

 

[LadyKotaDoria]

I caught Louiese trying to break into the brooder, I picked her up and wouldn't put her down for about 15 min. During that time Tipsy and Lesa were looking for a way in. After I put her down, I have not seen them in the past 3 hours. :/ Very interesting. Chicken TV is so interesting. The older girls only pick the chicks when they are in picking distance. At lest they are not hunting them.

 

[LadyKotaDoria]

...

Louise, formerly Georgina. I think Louise is better, now witch is Thelma

?

Ok, now, did they-- or ---her just cull her or "eat"? & do you know for sure it was Georgia/Louise/Thelma? & what I mean
Is it just one chicken that either culled, still together with feathers or "eaten" like tore up & mangled? Boy there is no way
of saying that right? Ugh,! Sorry again...

LKD:
I looked all over, in the fair north east corner, the gang of 4 were huddled. What caught my attention was squabbling. That is when I decided to check it out, when I saw Louise running with a leg dangling, Mary and Lesa in pursuit. In Louise beak was a leg dangling. I went to the corner, nothing. I know what happened and I did not really want to look to close. Tipsy (may be Thelma) was chocking down something moved away from me, joining the other 3 of the gang of 4. As I said I watched their behavior, and Louise had great interest in the brooder, then she slipped in, she was after another one.

And! I found another leg and foot back there about an hour ago. No picture.... It is just to sad, no need to be graphic. Ya! They eat her, caught her, killed her and ate her.
---------------------------

I have been trying to get a picture, they keep jumping down, all but Mary was on top when I tried to snap a picture, they are fast. I have found Clare on top but she was resting, so it looked, waiting for me to give them a treat. As soon as I opened the door she came over to me. But I rather doubt she would not join in on the carnage. She is a carnivore as the others.

 

[City farm]

I'm so sorry. I have lost my favorite chicken to a coyote and it really sucks. She was just such a friendly little girl. She love to be snuggled. I had nursed her to health at one point and she became very attached to me and me to her as well. It broke my heart to find nothing but feathers left of her. Now my little Elvis has no mate. I am going to have to find him a couple little hens to put with him. Once I do I will separate the flocks so they will not interbreed with the others.

Oh man, condolences from us.. Are you only wanting polish hens?

 

[notinoz2007]

Well, that was a long day! Some morons in front of us decided to slam on their brakes for a school bus, even though it's stop sign wasn't out. My wife couldn't stop fast enough and rear ended one of them. Fortunately, I'm completely ok with maybe a slightly sore ankle tomorrow. My wife injured her entire left arm from the shoulder down. Sometimes I think the seatbelts do more damage than good. They can save lives, bit they've been the cause of fatalities, too.

The truck, however, is quite likely totalled. Nearly 180k miles, over 12 years old and both airbags deploying, I don't foresee them fixing it.

Night all!

wow, so sorry about your accident. hope everyone is feeling fine by now. it amazes me that people dont know the rules around school buses, those should be on the driving tests, or on the news or something. there are so many in these big cities and people need to know. i have seen drivers stop while only the lights are blinking, no need for that - on the other hand, i have seen the stop arm out and drivers across the street still driving, even tho there is not a median. for a bus stop means stop, not matter what side of the road.. *sorry for the mini rant. they didnt find you at fault did they?? cuz its totally the doofus in front of you.

Quote: i second that, those ants were brutal and like a dummy i wore flip flops!

you non't count chicks!!!!

I have 6 pullets (2 will be hens in next month) 4 pullets & 2p3 hens.........

I have room for a couple more!

i dont count chicks either. and they are chicks until they lay an egg! in mesa we are only allowed 10 but i've had up to 38 before, cuz 30 of them were 3 month olds

Oh and on the garden, ya I totally want to cheat to.... We seriously have like 300 seed packets.. So buying a plant
is such a crime.. Augh! Once I see the plant it is hard to resist.. Instant garden.. Plus I planted about 175 seeds in the
last two months.. Only about 50 seedlings have made it.. The 112' days made it difficult for those seedlings to survive..

forget the temperatures, my chickens cut the survival rate of EVERYTHING in my yard. my dogs dont even want to go outside anymore. LOL

So for those of us who can't hatch chicks, I found that all you have to do is plant a chicken tree and within minutes it's covered in chickens.







Right now my gardens are empty but since we shouldn't have many 100 degree days anymore I'm getting ready to plant stuff again. The chickens have claimed the empty garden beds as their own though. I'm going to have to put a fence of some kind up when I get the veggies planted so I decided to make the girls a play area to try to distract them from the veggie garden area.

My bf ripped out an old fruit tree and it has been laying in the side yard waiting for bulk trash day. I kept finding the chickens on it. You know you're obsessed when your chickens decide they like a dead tree so you make a special spot for it in your yard. That corner of the yard is always shady so it's like impossible to get grass to grow there anyway. I filled the dust bath pit with loosened dirt, some sand, and some potting soil. Now they have a nice place to play and bathe and they can stay the heck out of my gardens. Well, a girl can dream right?

i absolutely love your yard, from what i can see anyway. is that bamboo? how did you get it to grow??? i planted bamboo along my south wall and all died within a month also, that dead tree looks awesome. great art, with or without chickens on it.

Quote: i've tried to do deep litter in my new coop, but apparently there is a leak or something because the last 2 times it has rained the coop floor was a stinky swamp mess. i'm going to have to fix that up over the winter...


LKD i am so so sorry to read about poor sweet pea. thats so tragic.. i live in fear that my hens are egg eaters, now i am more humble thinking it could be worse...

 

[Twinklin]

i absolutely love your yard, from what i can see anyway. is that bamboo? how did you get it to grow??? i planted bamboo along my south wall and all died within a month also, that dead tree looks awesome. great art, with or without chickens on it.

Thanks. Unfortunately it's Oleander. We've been a here a year and luckily haven't had any issues with it as far as poisoning goes. Hopefully we never will. I did a lot of research on it before we got chickens and found that birds are not as sensitive to the plant as humans and dogs. The girls hang out under it all day and so far nothing bad has happened. My dog isn't one to eat stuff off the ground so he's been ok with it too. I love the bushes because they're great for privacy and are beautiful but I'm always paranoid about them. It would be impossible to get rid of all of them too. Our entire back yard is lined with them. The ones on the side the chickens are on, the grass side of the yard, are nice and full you can see in these pics, they're like 15+ ft tall...








The ones on the pool side aren't as nice.





The previous owner did nothing with the landscape here. We had to rip out 8 trees and get the drip and sprinkler system working. Every month when bulk trash comes I have a huge pile of dead stuff to take out and we've been here almost a year lol. Some day it will all be pretty and then we'll move hahaha.

This is the condition it was in when we moved in...





I've done a lot of landscaping, trimming, watering, and plumbing outside, and a ton of painting and stuff inside. The entire inside of the house was painted dark dark brown. The bedrooms are grey still which I'll get to fixing eventually but the main part of the house is much livelier and brighter.

 

[WestSideChicken]

My husband went to the feed store on his day off to replace a bantam chick ( we figured out the heat light was not hot enough because we started the chicks in the taller brooder this time which meant lamp was too high). I come home from work and there are not one but another two chicks in the brooder and a baby tortoise in the living room...I look on the printer and I see the HOA rules that say as long as thy are pets we can have them. In a week I went from 4 to 10 chickens plus a turkey. I think I created a monster! (He claimed the turkey and leghorn as his already to the argument of the kids) I guess he figures they don't count if they are bantams or chicks either! I had wanted to wait and hatch a few in the incubator in my classroom, but now that would give me way to many chicks to handle.

 

[notinoz2007]

twinklin, great job on the yard. it passed through my brain that it might be oleander, but i brushed it aside because i really wanted it to be bamboo, lol. plus my oleander has flowers dropping everywhere and your yard looked so clean - freshly raked i suppose?? cute little dog too.