Arizona Chickens

[moms3cuties]

Does your silkie get nasty when she is broody? Have you ever let her raise some chicks?  I got the silkie breed because of their overall usefulness.  Good egg layers, good meat chickens, good mothers, and best of all good personality so my six children could pet them.  It all started out great even the rooster was friendly. The kids would sit in the chicken run and the chickens would come and sit in their laps to be petted.  Then the girls went broody after the rooster got killed by a chicken hawk and it was spring so I thought why not it will be cute to watch chicks follow the moms around. I got four fertile eggs from my mom and all hatched.  So my two silkies did a great job co-parenting.  they took turns on the nest so the other could get some exercise and eat. And when the eggs hatched they also took turns watching and feeding the babies.  It was a perfect world I was wondering why anyone uses an incubator! Then the chicks were going outside and the kids wanted to hold them.  They went in the chicken pen and the moms would not let anyone around the chicks.  I told the kids to wait until they were older and they did.  they tried it again.  The chicks started to come up to the kids and then the moms freaked out and started bulling the kids.  They didn't hurt them but they were flapping and making their displeasure known.  Now that the chicks are grown we can't get near them and the silkies are still nasty.  Any idea what I did wrong?

good question! ... does anyone have any knowledge on silkies?

 

[Born2blove]

Good to know! Do you know which hatchery they order from?

they order it from http://www.idealpoultry.com/

 

[pipemum]

I'm going to try straw bale gardening this spring! Oh, and I planned to do an elaborate keyhole garden anyway, but I'll modify it a bit to be simpler, and dig more in ground due to cityfarm's comment about u-shaped garden with compost in the middle. So, I guess my new garden space is going to be a combo of raised beds, regular sunken garden, keyhole, and strawbales. Thanks for the ideas, all!! In my current garden, which will go to the dogs soon, I have little niches in hidden all over growing succulents, strawberries, and perennial herbs. Not really sure how I'm going to transplant them successfully. Hopefully they'll taste horrid and the dogs will leave them alone. Hahahahahaaha, yeah, right.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Oh, thanks for the photos, that explains the name! With our heavy monsoon rainstorms, I can't imagine the edges would hold up. I think if you put your partially composted material on the bottom and composted on top, it will be fine. The bottom layer will continue to decompose and if it's deeper than the roots grow, the roots won't burn if there is too much manure.

This is what I do. I double dig at least once a year about 2'-3' down and put partially composted stuff in the bottom and any branches, palm fronds etc. that I need to get rid of. The top gets a good dose of finished compost a couple times a year. It's tough digging the first couple of times, but now the soil is easy to dig.

I'm going to try straw bale gardening this spring! Oh, and I planned to do an elaborate keyhole garden anyway, but I'll modify it a bit to be simpler, and dig more in ground due to cityfarm's comment about u-shaped garden with compost in the middle. So, I guess my new garden space is going to be a combo of raised beds, regular sunken garden, keyhole, and strawbales. Thanks for the ideas, all!! In my current garden, which will go to the dogs soon, I have little niches in hidden all over growing succulents, strawberries, and perennial herbs. Not really sure how I'm going to transplant them successfully. Hopefully they'll taste horrid and the dogs will leave them alone. Hahahahahaaha, yeah, right.

Good luck! Let us know how it works. I had to google keyhole garden; they look interesting.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Stuff from the garden.

A massive head of lettuce for last night's salad:



Purple cauliflower:

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

So, I thought I'd post an update on the progress of my daughter's climbing. Mostly because I can barely contain my excitement and have to share. Last month Tucson hosted the Southern Mountain Regional Championships in bouldering and hundreds of youth climbers from AZ, UT and NM competed for seven invitations (for each age category) to compete in the Divisional Championships in Ogden, UT. There the winners for all the regions in the southwest US gathered last weekend to compete for seven invitations to the National Championship. My daughter rocked at both the Regional and Divisional Championships and will be competing in the National Championships in Madison, WI next month! She's now officially one of the top 35 best female youth climbers in the United States. We couldn't be more proud of her.

 

[Timskins]

So, I thought I'd post an update on the progress of my daughter's climbing. Mostly because I can barely contain my excitement and have to share. Last month Tucson hosted the Southern Mountain Regional Championships in bouldering and hundreds of youth climbers from AZ, UT and NM competed for seven invitations (for each age category) to compete in the Divisional Championships in Ogden, UT. There the winners for all the regions in the southwest US gathered last weekend to compete for seven invitations to the National Championship. My daughter rocked at both the Regional and Divisional Championships and will be competing in the National Championships in Madison, WI next month! She's now officially one of the top 35 best female youth climbers in the United States. We couldn't be more proud of her.

Climbing in Wisconsin next month? Do they climb glaciers?

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Climbing in Wisconsin next month? Do they climb glaciers?

They DO climb glaciers, just not in Madison. Fortunately, it will be an indoors competition. No one is quite sure how Madison got the event, it's been in CO forever.

 

[DesertChic]

They DO climb glaciers, just not in Madison. Fortunately, it will be an indoors competition. No one is quite sure how Madison got the event, it's been in CO forever.

That's seriously impressive! So...how long until we see them on "American Ninja Warrior"?

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Quote:
LOL! You know what? She totally wants to do that and thinks she could win. You have to be 21 to compete or she would be all over it.