Arizona Chickens

[kpgoldstar]

Oh great! Now I have to go to Western Ranchman too! YAY!

 

[Beckyhsinglsc]

Quote: My coop/run combo is 10 x 6 and I have 10 chickens right now. They free-range most of the day in our back yard and when we go out of town my neighbor enjoys watching them.
We did have a coyote visit a couple of years ago, but I think it was too traumatic for him so he hasn't been back. (The neighbor's very large dogs scared him over their wall, he fell in our pool and then I chased him off yelling at him the whole time). I know we might get one who is actually interested in the chickens and I'll have to build a larger run, but until then, they free-range.

 

[Twinklin]

I think it's good that you're thinking this through. Here's my take on space; I think that you have to plan for the most restrictive scenario. For example, we like to travel a lot which often means no one is here to let them out and put them up at night (and we usually don't have our house-sitter let them out). So, we try to have enough space that even when confined for several weeks on end, they're O.K. Right now it's about as crowded as ever with nine adult birds (very soon to be eight) in 200 square feet of combined run and coop space (~25 sq ft/bird).

I think that it's so very helpful to have a completely enclosed run; one that is covered and as strong at defending attacks as your coop. That way you don't have to worry about locking them up at night in the coop and letting them out to the run in the morning.

Also, your free-ranging schedule is very likely to change over the time you have chickens either due to a change in jobs or the inevitable predator attack. I used to free-range like you but once the coyotes found our property we had to stop. I only let them out when I'm outside and even that is no guarantee, in the last attack the coyote jumped the wall and grabbed a hen right in front of me. We got lucky in that we had three and a half good years of free-ranging before the coyotes found us and I was here to stop both attacks which surely limited the number of fatalities. We got much luckier than most folks I know here in Tucson. I think our 6' block wall helped because over the years we saw the coyotes take the less secluded and protected chickens in the neighborhood before they got around to discovering ours. I can tell you, that after reading this entire thread and talking with lots of other chicken raisers here in southern AZ, it is only a matter of time before a dog, coyote or bobcat finds your flock. Not that I'm advocating against free-ranging, because I do free-range, but once something like this happens, it has an impact on how you manage your flock. I think it's worthwhile considering the impact when you're in the planning stages.

I'm hoping we never have coyote issues. I was very paranoid about it when we first moved in and didn't let the girls free range at first, only like an hour a day while I worked in the yard. We have seen them early morning in the neighborhood though. In order to get into our yard they'd have to come through the front yard where there's more people and cars and hop our wall. I'm not sure if they'd take that route. The rest of our property has the 6ft block wall around it, 20 ft bushes lining most of the wall and our back yard backs up to a main road. We're pretty close to the wash though where we've heard they make their dens. So we do know it IS possible to have an attack.

Our current run is galvanized mesh with a 2 ft skirt and is covered. The chickens would have just over 25 ft per bird combined coop/run if we had to confine them full time with just the 4 we have now. Now thinking about it I may not open the door into the run at 3am before I leave for work and wait until 9:30 when I get home. Coyotes are more likely to come try to bother them in the run at 4am then at 9.

We don't typically vacation or travel but if we did we'd have my boyfriend's parents come stay at our house while we are gone and they would let the chickens out and be here with them during the day. My boyfriend doesn't really care about the chickens so he's not necessarily for getting any more. I just want some fancier ones since we have all boring standard feed store breeds now. I guess I'll have to limit myself to 7 total in case they ever need to be confined full time. They'd have 15 sq ft each combined coop + run. I think that would be an ok amount of space should it come to that. I can add another roost bar up higher in the run too. They have a small 2 ft high one in the one corner. The run roof peaks at 6ft so they can definitely hang out up higher.

Thanks everyone for their opinions. It's very helpful.

 

[Twinklin]

Oh great! Now I have to go to Western Ranchman too! YAY!

we got our girls at western ranchman. They are nice there. If we get more chicks we won't get them there because they don't vaccinate and seem to only have the standard breeds which was fine for our first batch but now I want fancy so I'm probably going to mail order the next group. We do get our DE there though.

 

[Twinklin]

Yay! Congratulations. That first egg is so exciting.

Thanks! It made me so happy, I danced around the house singing my own egg song all day yesterday. I think Onyxia is having a hard time coming to the realization that this egg laying thing is now a daily chore. I glanced over at her around 9:15 this morning and saw her vet was protruding a little, then she did a little kid pee pee dance and took off for the coop. She was in there for about 15 minutes and came back out and no egg. She's been in and out of there 2 more times since then. She seems upset that she's now a grown up and has other responsibilities besides playing in the dirt and looking for bugs.

 

[City farm]

 
I know I'm totally over thinking this, I just want to plan ahead for the next 6 months- 1 year so I know what I have to try to get permission from my bf to build in that time or know I need to seek professional help to try to get over the fact that I can't get any more chickens.

I think it's good that you're thinking this through.  Here's my take on space; I think that you have to plan for the most restrictive scenario.  For example, we like to travel a lot which often means no one is here to let them out and put them up at night (and we usually don't have our house-sitter let them out).  So, we try to have enough space that even when confined for several weeks on end, they're O.K.  Right now it's about as crowded as ever with nine adult birds (very soon to be eight) in 200 square feet of combined run and coop space (~25 sq ft/bird).  

I think that it's so very helpful to have a completely enclosed run; one that is covered and as strong at defending attacks as your coop.  That way you don't have to worry about locking them up at night in the coop and letting them out to the run in the morning. 

Also, your free-ranging schedule is very likely to change over the time you have chickens either due to a change in jobs or the inevitable predator attack.  I used to free-range like you but once the coyotes found our property we had to stop.  I only let them out when I'm outside and even that is no guarantee, in the last attack the coyote jumped the wall and grabbed a hen right in front of me.  We got lucky in that we had three and a half good years of free-ranging before the coyotes found us and I was here to stop both attacks which surely limited the number of fatalities.  We got much luckier than most folks I know here in Tucson.  I think our 6' block wall helped because over the years we saw the coyotes take the less secluded and protected chickens in the neighborhood before they got around to discovering ours.  I can tell you, that after reading this entire thread and talking with lots of other chicken raisers here in southern AZ, it is only a matter of time before a dog, coyote or bobcat finds your flock.  Not that I'm advocating against free-ranging, because I do free-range, but once something like this happens, it has an impact on how you manage your flock.  I think it's worthwhile considering the impact when you're in the planning stages.

X2!!!great advice gallo

 

[Twinklin]

Onyxia is 2 for 2 now. 2 eggs in 2 days about 25 hours apart. Today's egg was the exact same color as yesterday's but a little bit smaller.

 

[Arizonachicken]

Yay for first eggs!

 

[Arizonachicken]

I just posted a CL ad for two of my pullets. A Buff Orpington and a White Rock. PM me if anyone here is interested! They're about 3 months old.

 

[Twinklin]

So I've never seen a silkie in person but I heard they are larger than many bantams. I also read a lot of advice about mixing bantams and LF. I've read lots of posts of people successfully mixing them into larger flocks. Would having a single silkie with 6 LF be a bad idea? I'm assuming when mixing LF and bantams you should probably have several bantams so they can band together. Am I wrong? A silkie is one of the birds on my list but I'm not really a bantam fan otherwise so if I got one it would be the only bantam. My RIR is really small though so maybe they could be buddies. Grrrrr I hate being so limited on space, I need to move to a farm lol