Arizona Chickens

[a little chiken]

well things have been terribly crazy around here the last couple of months; my work was insane; 50=70 hours a week. finallly got some days off and have been working around the place a bit; some of it in my blog in my sig line.

Have somewhere around 80 chicks, have about 25 eggs due this weekend, another 20 due the following week and just set 29 for my friend due the end of the month. Tomorrow we will set about 20-25 at work (I work with people with disabilities and we are going to hatch chicks; have 15 of them already sold) then I AM DONE hatching! for spring! I really didn't want to be hatching this late, but with my work schedule I couldn't get some of my breeding pens set up.

Now to finish getting the garden situated so I have stuff to sell the first Sat of June when our farmer's market opens, build some more grow out pens and monitor all the chicks. Mid May I'll be picking up my LGD a Maremma pup from some folks down in Maricopa. So I'll be spending lot of time training and monitoring him with the chickens.whew. yes I"m crazy and I know it ;-)

cityfarm; poor Roger and little Princess were taken off by a predator. I have one pet quality silkie from them. I have two more from Roger and Bianca from an earlier hatch. Pretty sure that the three brown chicks in the new hatch were Roger's. I moved Bianca in with some other Silkies after I lost R&P so the other chicks are probably from the other boys.


Bianca set 9 eggs, one was clear. 7 hatched yesterday plus I gave her 6 Buff Orpingtons. The last egg still looks good but doesn't look like it's far enough along to hatch; I think someone else laid it and she stole it.

wow you are busy!!! what beautiful little chicks. I really want some silkies. I bought 4 that I was told are silkies but they are clearly a mix of silkie with??? I would love some white and blue ones although I basically want them for brooder hens. someday. Thank you for sharing.

 

[desertmarcy]

Does anyone know if boxes approved for shipping chickens can be re-used? Is that allowed by the post office? Also, to piggyback on Angelray's post, how would I look up the restrictions for shipping live chickens to other states, since NPIP certification is pretty much non-existent in AZ (I know some states require NPIP at a minimum, but I don't know which ones)?


Quote:
People reuse the boxes all the time. The PO people are not box police

As long as they are clean-looking and sturdy and the approved type box, the only thing I would worry about it possibly transmitting disease to new chicks being put in a used box.
As far as what states you can ship to, I don't know where you would find such a list, but in any case, it is not really enforced very well. I have shipped all over the US and so far have not had any problems.

 

[brlracr624]

Hello my AZ friends. I am in the Verde Valley and we are getting our first set of chicks this week. My dh works at Olsen's and we are getting them from there. I just got the lumber to start our coop today and we are super excited.

 

[LindaMurphy]

Hello my AZ friends. I am in the Verde Valley and we are getting our first set of chicks this week. My dh works at Olsen's and we are getting them from there. I just got the lumber to start our coop today and we are super excited.

Very cool. It is fun raising chickens as long as you can take losses every so often. Predators are my biggest challenge.

 

[brlracr624]

We are going to use welded wire so hopefully nthing will get in. We are even going to wire the floor so skunks or racoons don't get in. Luckily dh works at Olsen's so he gets a lot of tips and help.

 

[Stynch]

We are going to use welded wire so hopefully nthing will get in. We are even going to wire the floor so skunks or racoons don't get in. Luckily dh works at Olsen's so he gets a lot of tips and help.

You might want to consider using hardware cloth on the bottom and lower sides, then use the welded wire up higher. You'd be amazed at what can slither/crawl through a 2 x 4 opening!! Good luck with your new venture

 

[alohachickens]

Speaking of adding new chickens to a flock, I need to re-home my "old" chickens, but I want to do it responsibly?

My chickens, a mixed flock ranging in age from two months to four years, has picked up some annoying sniffles thing along the way. It is not serious. But, it keeps showing up in each batch of new chicks, once they come in contact with the adults. Some of the adults must be carriers. Darn it.

So anyway, I want to start over, but I don't think this justifies killing the flock? They lay well, and about half the flock have never shown any signs of illness. If it was really serious, that would be a different story, but mostly it's like a cold where they sniffle for a while and then it passes. Very rarely, one will pass. Like the batch of 15 chicks, one died when they got it. That's not huge numbers. And that is without medicine. I used to treat for it, but I stopped, and it actually seems to be getting better since I stopped treating them. It gets more and more mild as time passes so it's either on the way out, or the flock is building an immunity. Pops up about twice per year.

I was thinking of advertising on Craigslist to offer them free, to right home, but I have reservations about possibly unscrupulous people who may try and re-sell or not take good care of them?

I want to hatch out a TON of chicks in May (like 100-200) clean the coop, and start again, fresh. (That seems to be what all the web sites out there are suggesting?)

Here's photos of some that would need new homes:




They are laying like CRAZY. I'm getting about two dozen eggs per day right now! If I only wanted pretty backyard chickens that were good layers, these would be perfect. But people keep asking to buy my older chickens, and I feel if I'm going to sell started stock, they should be as "clean" as I can offer them?

If anyone knows of a good home for 10-12 hens and a rooster, (FREE) please message me. Would like to keep them together if possible. Or could maybe break into two flocks of 5-8 hens with one rooster. And note, I probably would come over and screen the home personally. (If your neighbor who wants chickens would think that's weird, give them a heads up. I really care about these chickens a lot.) Would be looking to re-home them next month after I've collected my own eggs for hatching.

 

[mom-to-5]

For those in the hot desert that feed fermented feed....can you give me some insight, please?
Yes, I have read the FF thread but it's overwhelming and not specific to our temps (if that may be my problem).
I have been doing the bucket method (3 g bucket, in the storage area of the coop). At first I tried using probiotics for fermentation instead of ACV for fear of alcohol fermentation. The birds seem to love it and it worked well for about a month but then started to mold. So, I dumped and started over again with the probiotics. After a few attempts at this I recently tried raw apple cider vinegar. But just a week and a half later it's not smelling very good. No mold and the birds are still eating it (even my dog tries to eat the feed, lol!) but I'm guessing that I'm just going to have to start over every 2-4 weeks which kinda defeats the fermentation process.
Is it the heat that's making it not work? Do you keep the FF in the house to keep it at a more stable temp? I'm thinking hubby probably won't go for that.
Any points, tips or tricks to get this to work for me?
Thank you!!!

 

[brlracr624]

I hadn't thought of the slithering things, thank you. We get the chicks Fri but we will be building the coop on dh's days off

 

[Demosthine]

Demo: unfortunately my camera isn't working, so I can't post pics of the baby rabbits. I processed two of the males. They tasted fine, but the mature buck only dressed out at two pounds and the younger one at just over a pound. If you do decide to raise rabbits again, you might want to rethink your management plan. The bucks were very thin and lean, and the does needed worming.

Thanks for the update. It's good to know a bit more on how things were turning out. I knew they would all be smaller than ideal because they were not meat breeds. I had picked up the breeding stock for free off Craig's List, so they were smaller. Next time I do it, I'm buying actually meat stock like California, New Zealand or a cross between them. The two smoke grey juveniles were California, but were rather young. They had also been very neglected for the three weeks before you got them, because I was not allowed at the house. I have no idea what all went on during that time, but it doesn't sound like they were taken care of. I know that nobody was even here at the house for two of those weeks. There will be several things different the next time around.