Arizona Chickens

[jubilation]

All this talk about putting our gardens out makes me anxious for May when I can get my garden out. I get really large tomatoes and beans coming out the wazoo. I usually grow okra, zuchinni, yellow squash, onions, green beans, tomatoes, romaine lettuce, mint, radishes, bell peppers ( green, red & yellow), and anything else that I can find to plant. Don't plant corn but I have grapes and blackberries when I can keep the birds out. I usually sell vegetables, eggs, grapes and blackberries in the summer because there's too much for just me and my husband. Do a lot of canning
& freezing too. My hens have laid all winter long and I ended up having to give away 8 dozen eggs.

It sounds strange to me hearing people putting out their gardens now when the nights up here are still really cold and sometimes freezing. After eating my own tomatoes last year and then having to go to store bought, no comparison. Store bought tastes anemic Also store bought onions don' have the same flavor as home grown. We have several organic food stores in our area so we try to buy our fresh vegetables from there in the winter. I put chicken droppings in my garden last November and let it set this winter so I'm looking forward to really big vegetables this year. Chicken dropping are the best for great gardens. Also have a lot of flowers in the summer. Sounds like a lot of work, but the harvest of great, organic, non pesticide, chemical free vegetables is worth it. Too many chemicals in our foods from the regular stores - causes cancers and all kinds of health problems. I'm also into natural herbs for healing and try to stay away from artificial, chemical medications. I do homeopathic counseling.

 

[Demosthine]

It got reasonably cold here this winter, but with the exception of about a single week, I don't think we've hit frost at all the rest of the time. The broccoli and cauliflower we planted never blossomed to give us the vegetables, either. The romaine and red leaf lettuce did really well, though. I think I'm going to pick up some more transplants for those, too, and we can start over. It was nice seeing it growing right there by the front door every day, and being able to go pick a couple leaves as we needed them.

I'm debating on how to do the rattlesnake beans and sugar snap peas, though. I was looking at planting the "Three Sisters" combination (corn, pole beans, and squash), but I guess the corn needs a really good size block of crop to pollinate. Our garden area is only 8-foot square, which is about the minimum they recommend. I wanted to get both types of carrots and both types of tomatoes going

The raised bed is a "U" shape that covers an 8'x8' area. Each bed is three feet wide, with a two-foot strip down the middle section. Maybe if I do an 8'x5' block of the three sisters at the bottom of the "U" shape, I should get a reasonably good pollination rate, and then plant the tomatoes on opposite sides of the remaining two 3'x3' sections. Then, the carrots can go down the middle section of it all, since the ones I have seeds for like heavy, tough soil. The green circles indicate the corn and pole beans, with the squash being the yellow circles. Tomato plants would go in the red area, with the carrots in the orange strip. I could probably get two plants of the bell peppers in each of the strips between the three sisters and the tomatoes, I think.

​

 

[GREG BOAM]

Sad day today. My wife called me and said when she went in our backyard all 5 of our chickens were torn to bits. I presume a coyote. We live in suburbia and I never thought a coyote would come in that deep and be able to hop over all the fenses and cinderblock walls and get at our chickens. We are getting out of the chicken life. We have a Leghorn who survived because she was locked in a dog kennel due to the other chickens picking on her. If anyone wants her let me know.

 

[Stynch]

Sad day today. My wife called me and said when she went in our backyard all 5 of our chickens were torn to bits. I presume a coyote. We live in suburbia and I never thought a coyote would come in that deep and be able to hop over all the fenses and cinderblock walls and get at our chickens. We are getting out of the chicken life. We have a Leghorn who survived because she was locked in a dog kennel due to the other chickens picking on her. If anyone wants her let me know.

So sorry for your loss.

 

[Demosthine]

Sad day today. My wife called me and said when she went in our backyard all 5 of our chickens were torn to bits. I presume a coyote. We live in suburbia and I never thought a coyote would come in that deep and be able to hop over all the fenses and cinderblock walls and get at our chickens. We are getting out of the chicken life. We have a Leghorn who survived because she was locked in a dog kennel due to the other chickens picking on her. If anyone wants her let me know.

I'm sorry to hear that. It's a very common problem in the valley, and there is nowhere that can be considered safe. I'm often surprised more people don't know, but coyotes can clear 8' block fences without ever touching it. They are amazingly athletic and fast. I've seen them roaming around all the way in to the 27th Avenue and Indian School Road area, where our old house was. They often live in the retention areas, water gulleys and under the bridges, etc. If you think about it, there's a ton of food sources in the valley, especially up near the Sun City area, with the older population having the smaller yippy dogs and such. Plus the golf courses have so many rabbits, ducks, etc. Surprise is close enough to get coyotes coming through Sun City, Sun City West and Sun City Grande. You have a lot of crop fields South of Surprise, too, so you're in the middle of their stomping grounds.

If you don't find anyone else, I'd be willing to take her. I appear to be the North Valley Chicken Rescue. With our large flock and several roosters keeping them in check, she should fit in perfectly fine. Just PM me over the next few days if nobody else shows interest. I'm off work starting Monday for a full month, so it's all good there.


If anyone is interested, I do have an Ameracauna cockerel that I'm not interested in keeping. My two plus two half-roosters are enough for my flock. My Silkie and Buttercup each count as half-roosters.

Sometime after my wife's surgery, he'll deploy to Camp Freezer, along with a rabbit and our turkey, if nobody claims him before then.

 

[jubilation]

Here's a question for anyone. While I've had chickens in the past when I was on the farm in Indiana, I never interacted with any of them because there were so many and they were for meat and eggs. We raised White Leghorns and Rhode Island Reds so no pets or anything like that. My dad frowned on me making pets of the farm animals - cows, chickens, pigs, goats, etc.

Anyway, noticed something interesting yesterday. I had a friend from Washington visit with me yesterday and we went out to see the chickens. Normally when I or my husband go out they all come running toward us and gather around our feet and talk to us. Yesterday they saw us and came running but stopped short when they saw my friend and never did come really close. So, not being a total expert on chicken behavior, the question is did they smelll another person they didn't recognize or did they see another person they didn't recognize? Quite an interesting observation.

 

[FeatherPugs]

Sad day today. My wife called me and said when she went in our backyard all 5 of our chickens were torn to bits. I presume a coyote. We live in suburbia and I never thought a coyote would come in that deep and be able to hop over all the fenses and cinderblock walls and get at our chickens. We are getting out of the chicken life. We have a Leghorn who survived because she was locked in a dog kennel due to the other chickens picking on her. If anyone wants her let me know.

Sounds more like dogs than coyotes. Coyotes usually take most of it away - especially this time of year. So sorry - wish I was closer to Surprise - I would love the Leghorn.

 

[AZKat]

I'm going to be placing order for chicks from Meyer Hatchery on Friday. If anyone is interested in getting in on it, PM me with what you are interested in, and how many.

 

[GREG BOAM]

Quote:
I would have thought so too, but when I say bits and pieces, I mean tiny bits. I have shih tzu's but there was no break in evidence. Something must have cleared the 4 foot fense i have around the coop. Plus no blood on any of the dogs fur.

 

[FeatherPugs]

Quote:
Coyotes make more sense with "tiny bits". When a coyote took our turkey they took everything - only a few feathers were evident AND you couldn't follow them too well either. Way ugly!