Arizona Chickens

[Diannastarr]

WOW now that is amazing, I never heard of those insects..? WHAT EVER THEY ARE .? can you EX PLANE JUST HOW ALL OF THAT WORKS...??? it would be good to get rid of flies,

right on...!!!!

have a good one

take care Dianna

 

[Sill]

WOW now that is amazing, I never heard of those insects..? WHAT EVER THEY ARE .? can you EX PLANE JUST HOW ALL OF THAT WORKS...??? it would be good to get rid of flies,

right on...!!!!

have a good one

take care Dianna

The adult female fly predator seeks out fly pupa and lays her eggs in them. The eggs hatch and the larval fly predators consume the pupating fly, killing it. More fly predators hatch from the pupa instead of a fly.

Flies reproduce faster than fly predators so you need to release more at 3-4 week intervals during fly season.

 

[moms3cuties]

Holy Moly! Long thread, lol. Just wanted to jump in and say I'm in Queen Creek, have a pretty good small scale breeding program, if anyone ever needs any help with anything, questions about breeding/incubating, how to work on your car or weld some steel together, feel free to hit me up.

Oh neat! May have a car that needs some welding!

@Sill @moms3cuties ... did somebody say goat + East Valley?? I'm in the East Valley, I want a goooaaaattt!!! And now, in serious chicken news: the silence in my coop didn't last...I'm pretty sure I've got more boys ... sigh. I know it's a long shot, but I gotta try ... anybody want a Cuckoo Marans and/or a Blue Laced Red Wyandotte rooster? I confess I've never processed a chicken for eating ... if I have to cull more I might have to learn just so it doesn't feel like such a waste they seem so skinny when they're juveniles, though ... is there really enough meat to make it worth the effort?? Advise me, o wise ones of the message board!!

sometimes some of us have gotten together for processing class. 1) And another thought; at least will get you a few chicken nuggets, right or the help flavor some chicken soup. 2) One option I've done is putting a NO Crow collar, on them so I could eat them when they were fatter. My other dad said not to let them get too old otherwise I get to tough, however cooked long enough in the crock pot even their bones become even tender that point! .....Any chicken that causes me trouble and wakes the neighbors, their name becomes dinner! Do you have space for a "Goat"?!?

 

[moms3cuties]

On some sad news, we just lost our original Easter egger, a girl/hen named butter who was a cream color, found this morning. She just died on the ground underneath the tree that she perched from, so the kids are a bit sad.

she is the cream hen in the middle with the little bit of brown on her stomach.

One question regarding a Broody with baby chicks. Should you let her raise them or at three weeks or so should you take the chicks from her so they can be handled and more tame? Does anybody know the answer to this question? Suggestions?

 

[lacymorgan]

HI all my blue copper chicks are supposed to start hatching today so very excited Had one early hatch yesterday that died in the shell it was pipping at the narrow end. I am also looking for cream legbar pullets if you have any

 

[pipemum]

ok garden loppers. do you have a picture? I am preparing to process and really don't want the ax and a stump option that the DF wants to use. So I am going to get a cone and something to cut their heads off.

My garden loppers look something like this:


I sharpen them the evening before I process, and I only use these loppers for chickens. I don't want to dull them on branches and such. I place the bird in the cone, pull out and extend his/her neck and then reach out with the loppers and do the deed.

I've processed 14-week old cockerels, and even a young silkie mix. I've found them all to have plenty of meat for 2 days of meals, especially where you use the meat shredded--enchiladas, soups, casseroles, etc. The prep can be annoying with just one bird...the set up and clean up take me the most time. But now that I have a cone station set up, that should really cut down on set up time! I'm not going to have to spend an hour rigging up something crazy that barely works!

 

[pipemum]

On some sad news, we just lost our original Easter egger, a girl/hen named butter who was a cream color, found this morning. She just died on the ground underneath the tree that she perched from, so the kids are a bit sad.
she is the cream hen in the middle with the little bit of brown on her stomach.

One question regarding a Broody with baby chicks. Should you let her raise them or at three weeks or so should you take the chicks from her so they can be handled and more tame? Does anybody know the answer to this question? Suggestions?

I'm sorry to hear about your EE.

Most of the chicks I've had a broody raise are meat chickens, so the long-term result didn't matter. But, I have 4 laying hens, 9-10 months old, that were broody raised with little interaction from me, and they are just flighty and sketchy as all heck. I think more human interaction would produce more amenable chickens.

 

[FeatherPugs]

I personally like climbing rose's.. Our flock will eat the flower's.. I pick them right before they are ready to die off.. Plus they can handle the heat..
Grape vine, or something that is edible for your flock..hibiscus might work as well??

What about honeysuckle - grows quick. My girls ignore it and I end up cutting it back regularly.

 

[pipemum]

My hens would not let my Tombstone rose grow at all. I even surrounding the thing with a hardware cloth cage, and they would fly into cage and get stuck, just to eat the leaves. Same thing with a grape I tried. I am successfully growing a vine that they don't seem to bother it at all, but I'm having a heck of a time remembering the name. It's like a trumpet vine...but not. Ah, cross beauty vine? Yeah. I don't even have a cage around the vine but for the base to protect the roots from chicken scratching.

 

[desertmarcy]

For those of you interested in using fly predators. I released my second shippment this morning. You have to wait until you see some begin emerging from the parasitized fly pupae in the packaging. It takes a few days before you see them emerge. They look like very tiny winged ants.



I put them in bowls and saucers filled with shavings placed near manure sources and unfinished compost. I cover these with baskets or loose shade cloth to keep wild birds, lizards, geckos and chickens from eating the pupae before the fly predators have a chance to hatch out and leave. You can see several have crawled to the surface of the shavings.

Do you ever have problems with ants making off with the pupae? I've had problems for sure with birds especially, your screen/shade cloth is a good idea. I usually use wire that I have made into squares to put around and protect new plants, with a wire top. Then I just put the pupae on the ground with the wire around them.