Arizona Chickens

[mckenzy]

Apparently Beep2 takes Sundays off. Then like a good little Hen there it was at 7 this morning...a little green egg. She's laid perfect eggs 6 out of 7 days now.

 

[Twinklin]

Apparently Beep2 takes Sundays off. Then like a good little Hen there it was at 7 this morning...a little green egg. She's laid perfect eggs 6 out of 7 days now.

Yay, Grats! Ony is 2 for 2, she laid 9:30 and 10:30, I'm keeping my eyes peeled for egg #3

 

[pipemum]

Congrats on all the new eggs we have! I still only have one laying chicken (8 eggs out of 10 days), but the others are getting close. Any day now I should have nice brown eggs from my barred rocks. My EE lays late mornings most days, sometime after 9am.

Well, I went and picked up the broiler chicks on Saturday. For weeks I've been telling my daughter about the chicks and what they were for--eating. I kept saying, "don't get attached to them, we're going to eat them." Picked them up on Saturday, brought them home and told my daughter, "Remember, these are for dinner. Don't get attached to these chicks." She took one look in the box, and said, "Mama, I'm already attached!" These chicks are so dang cute it's kind of horrible because I know their ending. Perfect fuzzy little yellow balls. They are totally different than regular chicks. Mellow, quiet, poops aren't formed at all, even on the fermented feed, probiotics, and vitamins. I know these chicks will change and grow up to big fat broilers, but I wish they started out like little toads.

 

[Twinklin]

Yay, Grats! Ony is 2 for 2, she laid 9:30 and 10:30, I'm keeping my eyes peeled for egg #3

But she does look awfully comfy in the chicken tree... maybe she's going to protest egg laying today.





She's also fighting for top hen rank now. She always seemed pretty content being Eleanor's right hand chick but the past 2 days I've seen her peck Ely away from food, treats, and that special spot of grass that has the most whatever it is that chickens like about that one spot of grass that deserves a fight to get to when there's a whole yard of grass. I guess she thinks she's hot stuff now that she's the only one making breakfast.

 

[FeatherPugs]

We don't typically travel due to having the chickens, a dog and 2 indoor cats. It's too costly to board them for a week. If we DID go somewhere we'd fly my boyfriend's parents out for the week and they'd be here with them and let them out. It ends up being just as much for a plane ticket as kenneling the animals. It's nice that they're retired and can come out for a week whenever we want. We do have a run. It's pretty secure. The galvanized mesh is a bit larger than I'd like but we did double it up on the bottom 2 1/2 feet and skirted out on the bottom. It's 8x8. If we got 3 more chickens for a total of 7 they'd each have ~9sq ft run space and then a 41 sq ft coop as well. I think I'll make a nipple watering system to get the water bucket up off the ground too. After reading everyone's advice and opinions I decided we definitely won't put more than 7 in there. I told my boyfriend last night if we want more than that down the road we have to expand, and he actually didn't say "no we're not taking up any more space" like I thought he would... he just kind of stayed silent about it. lol Not sure if that's a good or bad sign. I think 7 is a good number for our set up in case they ever needed to be confined to it instead of ranging. I think I'll definitely add another roost bar though.








Oh and on a side note, we just switched to a trough style feeder and we're all loving it, especially little Phillie who doesn't get shoved out as much now. Since the roofrats tried to eat through the PVC feeder (I had fashioned a PVC sleeve that slid down to cover the holes at night and the rats didn't like the denied access) and the girls spilled any other type of container I tried to use I needed something they couldn't spill that was also light and easy for me to lock up at night to deter the rats. So far they haven't spilled a single crumb all week. And it was free since we have a zillion bricks laying around and I had a flower pot.






Thanks everyone again, SO much for your words of advice. It's always so helpful and I'm such a terrible decision maker so I need it

This all looks great!! How is the contractor sand working for you? Have you figured out a way to scoop it out? I use a pitchfork that I've attached screen to - works okay for me.

 

[MandyFitch]

This all looks great!! How is the contractor sand working for you? Have you figured out a way to scoop it out? I use a pitchfork that I've attached screen to - works okay for me.

Could you post a photo of your scoop contraption, please? That's the biggest litter box ever!

 

[Angelray]

angelray (i think) what kind of brahmas do you have? those were some pretty interesting colors i noticed in the picture

I'm not sure that any are brahams, but I have 2 (1 is my roo) polish, 2 ameraucana, a welsummer, some kind of Maran (so I'm told), a Russian orloff, golden lakenvelder, salmon favarolle, silver laced Cochin & current have 2 red stars & 2 more ameraucana in my brooder. One of my new chicks has a crossed beak tho so not sure if she will adapt yet or not.

What about you? Have any pix of your flock?

 

[pipemum]

Someone a few pages back mentioned their EE eggs were smaller than expected? Yes, I'm finding the same thing. I would never have thought I baked much, but I do bake a couple loaves of bread a week (thank you, breadmachine), and I'm noticing some of my recipes are turning out a little different now that my egg size has suddenly changed. I've been adding a little extra ground flax to the recipes, and that seems to even things out.

Will the barred rocks lay close to store-sized eggs? Supposedly the marans do, but I only have one and she won't lay for a while, and my gut says she probably won't be very consistent.

I drilled a little plastic cup for calcium supplement to the chicken run yesterday. Right now it's just crushed egg shell, but I have a bag of oyster shell that I can mix in. Their food is layer feed with calcium added, and my EE's eggs so far have been nice and thick, so I'm not sure how necessary the supplement is. But it's there, so one less thing to worry about.

 

[Twinklin]

This all looks great!! How is the contractor sand working for you? Have you figured out a way to scoop it out? I use a pitchfork that I've attached screen to - works okay for me.

I love the sand. In the run we only have a thin layer right now and it doesn't get too dirty since the girls free range so I just rake it. We have a few inches in the coop though. I have a box under the roost lined with a tarp so the majority of the poo is in there. Usually I pull the corners of the tarp to the center and it pulls the sand into a pile and then use my super scoop dohicky that I made out of scrap wood and hardware cloth and scoop through it then spread the sand back out. It works amazing. Our litter is always nice and clean, and zero smell. I typically scoop every other day to every 2 days since there's only 4 chickens pooping in there. The rest of the coop... well.... today, I swear, today I'll do the coop wash down.









And side note... Onyxia is 3 for 3. 10:30am same as yesterday. The past 2 were smaller than her first egg and today's had very little speckling to it but still a beautiful warm pinkish brown.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Howdy Folks!

I know I've not been around recently (or not even lately) but we're about to order a bunch of peepers.

From the original flock of 28 we have four left (the infamous poultry show virus incident);

The two Gretchens (barred rocks)
Meow - (Production red)
and Princess'es sister (Wellsummer)

We are going to split an order with our backyard neighbors and prolly wind up with a dozen and a half or so peepers.

Not sure if Ideal or McMurry. The state vet (when he came out to check on the girls) mentioned McMurry as the one he'd go with.

Does anyone have a link to the old breeds page. It was set up like a spread sheet with picts and attributes and was all alphabetized. I'd like to share it with out neighbors.

With a little luck you may be seeing me around here a bit more.

Gallo - what's with the name change?

CYA'll

Mikey

Hey Mikey!

It's so great to see you again. What kind of birds are you thinking of getting? They changed around the old breeds page and it doesn't seem as accessible as it was before. Such as it is, here it is. My name's still the same.