Arizona Chickens

[kacklinkelly]

So sorry to hear about the losses. I have a question - does anyone know if its OK to feed my meat rabbits weeds I'm pulling up in my yard. No pesticides.

 

[Demosthine]

So sorry to hear about the losses.  I have a question - does anyone know if its OK to feed my meat rabbits weeds I'm pulling up in my yard.  No pesticides. 

I'm of the philosophy that if it isn't good for tthem, they'll leave it alone, just like our flocks. A great place to ask would be the Backyard Meat Rabbits page on FaceBook. Lots of great people there.

 

[Twinklin]

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.

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I contemplated 3 sisters last year but decided against it as the corn does take up a LOT of space for very little profit. I don't remember the exact numbers I calculated out but it was something like I would have had to dig another like 8x10 area to plant around 6 corn stalks which would give me 6-12 ears of corn for the whole season and that just wasn't worth it to me. As for Sugar Snap Peas, I'm very PRO and the best way I found to do it was using the perimeter of the raised beds I have. I have a wire "fence" about 2ft high around the whole bed and I can line the whole thing with snap peas. The vines get a bit larger than 2 feet but they just find their way horizontally along it and being only 2 ft makes it easy for me to lean over it to harvest all the other stuff in the beds. I also made a taller 4 ft trellis in between the 2 raise beds and plant a row on both sides of that. Snap peas need very little space. I have them planted maybe 4 inches from the walls of the raised bed and another 6 inches from whatever they are planted next to and they do great.


In this pic I only had them planted along the tall trellis in the middle of the beds and they were very small at the time. And honestly it was an accident finding out I could plant them along the whole thing as I must have dropped a couple peas along the sides when planting and ended up sprouting some surprise pea plants along the side fencing. Now I do it along the whole thing because snap peas are my favorite



And holy cheezits, with Eleanor laying regularly now it sounds like an honest to goodness farm around here anymore. I swear, it's only 3 birds laying but from 8:30-9:30 they're one after another with their darn egg songs... the neighbors are gonna kill me... let's not tell them I have 4 more fuzzy butts coming in May lol

 

[pipemum]

Yes, omg, my chickens are LOUD. Over the weekend, I saw some people walking their dog in the wash, and they yelled over and said,"WE LOVE TO HEAR YOUR CHICKENS!" I went out to talk to them to see if they were being sarcastic or they really did like the sound of my chickens. Turns out theyy live across the wash and quite a few houses down (in the fancy-pants neighborhood), and they explained that they really do enjoy the sounds of my chickens. But, if they can hear way down there, that means quite a few houses around me can hear the chickens. I hope they aren't too annoyed.

I've never had good luck with 3-sisters. The corn has always been a failure. Of course, I try year after year. Maybe this will be the year I do not attempt corn.

 

[pipemum]

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.

 

[Demosthine]

Yes, omg, my chickens are LOUD. Over the weekend, I saw some people walking their dog in the wash, and they yelled over and said,"WE LOVE TO HEAR YOUR CHICKENS!" I went out to talk to them to see if they were being sarcastic or they really did like the sound of my chickens. Turns out theyy live across the wash and quite a few houses down (in the fancy-pants neighborhood), and they explained that they really do enjoy the sounds of my chickens. But, if they can hear way down there, that means quite a few houses around me can hear the chickens. I hope they aren't too annoyed.

I've never had good luck with 3-sisters. The corn has always been a failure. Of course, I try year after year. Maybe this will be the year I do not attempt corn.

From reading the last few days, it appears you need at least a 5' square area full of corn, about four stalks per square foot with a melon mound in each square foot between corn mounds. That's quite a lot of corn. The diagram I had shown gives me 19 of the areas of corn, with four stalks each, for a total of 76 stalks. At an estimated 10 ears per stalk, that's a LOT of corn I'll be canning. Each silk connects to an individual kernel and must be pollinated in order for them to develop. That's supposedly why the box planting is so much more efficient than row planting. They can properly cross-pollinate between stalks. Alternately, a co-worker mentioned an actual farmer he knows recommended he plant in a circle. That is supposed to eliminate the corners from the box, which are rarely properly pollinated.

They are also very heavy drinkers and feeders, so you have to make sure you are supplementing the soil every few weeks. I've still got some reading to do, but I'm going to try. I'll be getting the inexpensive seeds from Home Depot or Lowe's for now, but I'd love to upgrade to the Glass Gem Corn down the road. It's unbelievably gorgeous!


I'm often surprised to find out how many people in my neighborhood have enjoyed hearing ours, too. They are not nearly as loud as yours, so only about four or five houses in each direction can hear them. It seems like we have a lot more dog walkers since we got the chickens, but no complaints. We had far, far more complaints from the dog we use to have.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

I grew sweet corn just once here in AZ. In the first year of my final garden expansion I had about a 10' X 10' space that was a mix of 50:50 native soil and semi-composted horse manure. Sweet corn does well in a high nitrogen soil, which was why I chose it to be the first crop in that section of garden--lots of other stuff would likely have burned in the soil conditions at the time. I planted the corn in rows 12" apart with each stalk of corn just a few inches apart and it was all on a drip system. As it grew I mulched it well. You'll need to treat it with Bt so the stalks survive the cutworms early on and then later again, as it flowers, to deal with the corn worms. It did spectacularly well, in fact, I have been forbidden from ever growing it again. There was about a three week period where we had so much corn we were having it with every meal. We froze a lot too. Now we just appreciate it as a seasonal treat.

Pollination was not an issue for me, nearly every ear was sufficiently fertilized, even the corn in the corners. So, I think you can get away with much fewer plants in a smaller area if they are sufficiently dense enough. While it seems like the sweet corn from a plant is endless, most stalks will produce only one or two ears. Some hybrids will produce three if sufficient resources are available.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

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 Greg, I know how it feels.

 

[Twinklin]

My neighbor says she never hears ours except once in a very great while but that was before Ely started laying again and she's alpha hen so when she lays everyone in the WORLD needs to know. She also sings before, during, and after including any failed attempts. Sometimes it takes her a couple hours with multiple trips to the nest box in order to pop one out and she carries on the whole time. Hopefully now that she's feeling better and is laying almost every day she'll get more used to it and not have to cause such a loud fuss. My neighbor said one day when I had the girls in the run her cat went over the wall to check them out and she heard a huge commotion. She assumes it was because the cat had them worked up, she said other than that she never hears them and her house is only 10ft from the coop. There's a 6ft block wall between us which may help a little. Hopefully she continues to not hear them

 

[Demosthine]

I grew sweet corn just once here in AZ. In the first year of my final garden expansion I had about a 10' X 10' space that was a mix of 50:50 native soil and semi-composted horse manure. Sweet corn does well in a high nitrogen soil, which was why I chose it to be the first crop in that section of garden--lots of other stuff would likely have burned in the soil conditions at the time. I planted the corn in rows 12" apart with each stalk of corn just a few inches apart and it was all on a drip system. As it grew I mulched it well. You'll need to treat it with Bt so the stalks survive the cutworms early on and then later again, as it flowers, to deal with the corn worms. It did spectacularly well, in fact, I have been forbidden from ever growing it again. There was about a three week period where we had so much corn we were having it with every meal. We froze a lot too. Now we just appreciate it as a seasonal treat.

Pollination was not an issue for me, nearly every ear was sufficiently fertilized, even the corn in the corners. So, I think you can get away with much fewer plants in a smaller area if they are sufficiently dense enough. While it seems like the sweet corn from a plant is endless, most stalks will produce only one or two ears. Some hybrids will produce three if sufficient resources are available.

Hmm, I could have sworn whatever site I had been reading said they produce eight to twelve ears on average! That's a huge difference. Even so, if I end up with 72 stalks, at one to two ears a piece, that would give me the perfect amount to can a significant portion and then eat the rest. Anything excessive, all I have to do is send it three doors down to my parents' house for their four adopted and two foster kids! Between my family of five and their family of eight, we can pack away some serious food! I'm really encouraged by your success story! That would be awesome.