Arizona Chickens

[BlueBaby]

Some of these Walmarts are absolutely pathetic. It seems like everything you want has to be ordered online at Walmart.Com or whatever. It's almost not worth the time to make the trip there. --BB

Bobby Basham
Tucson, Arizona

You've got that right. Although Walmart advertises the price match deal thing, they seem to have started carrying the larger sizes of the items that are on sale in the other stores and thus, you cannot get the price match. Oh well, that is when Walmart looses a sale from me. I shop 3 stores to get my best deal.

 

[Diannastarr]

Hi cactusrota sorry we lost you as a neighbor in Hereford , I love the mountains down there i always wanted to live up at the very top of any of those canyons

i wish you all good in your new home & hope you are doing well , sorry we never got to meet well you take care now & have a good one Dianna : )

 

[cactusrota]

Hi cactusrota sorry we lost you as a neighbor in Hereford , I love the mountains down there i always wanted to live up at the very top of any of those canyons

i wish you all good in your new home & hope you are doing well , sorry we never got to meet well you take care now & have a good one Dianna : )

Oh thankyou! I do too. I was staying with my sister that lived right up against those mountains. We only had to walk a few hundred feet to reach a hiking trail that took you up Miller Canyon. That big wildfire a while back almost made it to her back door, she was really lucky! She evacuated and went back later to find firetruck tire tracks in her yard! I still go down there on occasion to visit but not often enough.

 

[ScottiO]

Hello everyone! Brand new chicken momma here! I live in Wickenburg, AZ (about 45 minutes NW of PHX aka HOT HOT HOT in summer). I have spent a lot of time reading on coop designs and such and so much is focused on keeping them safe and warm that when I searched for ventilation articles it dawned on me that we have the opposite problem. Yes where I live does get cold, (even below freezing at night in the winter), while planning a 4 walled structure am I basically making a chicken oven they will cook in come summer? A few things I read stated that solid hardware cloth walls for 1 or more walls isn't a terrible idea. My biggest concern is keeping them safe though. We have a decent sized area to work with but I am not looking to spend a fortune. My biggest predators I am guessing are hawks and coyotes. Our neighbors have hens in a shoddy little area and have no problems so maybe coyotes don't like to jump 6' wire fences? Anyways looking forward to learning and hopefully having a safe set up in about 4 weeks so my babes can move outside!

 

[BlueBaby]

Hello everyone! Brand new chicken momma here! I live in Wickenburg, AZ (about 45 minutes NW of PHX aka HOT HOT HOT in summer). I have spent a lot of time reading on coop designs and such and so much is focused on keeping them safe and warm that when I searched for ventilation articles it dawned on me that we have the opposite problem. Yes where I live does get cold, (even below freezing at night in the winter), while planning a 4 walled structure am I basically making a chicken oven they will cook in come summer? A few things I read stated that solid hardware cloth walls for 1 or more walls isn't a terrible idea. My biggest concern is keeping them safe though. We have a decent sized area to work with but I am not looking to spend a fortune. My biggest predators I am guessing are hawks and coyotes. Our neighbors have hens in a shoddy little area and have no problems so maybe coyotes don't like to jump 6' wire fences? Anyways looking forward to learning and hopefully having a safe set up in about 4 weeks so my babes can move outside!

Hello, and welcome. They will need ventilation here during the summer. Plenty of clean water, and you can add some ice to make it colder. I run a misting system in the far end of my chicken run on a timer for when the temps get really high. A friend of mine said that he seen a coyote jump his 7 foot fence a couple of years back.

 

[MagicChicken]

Hello everyone! Brand new chicken momma here! I live in Wickenburg, AZ (about 45 minutes NW of PHX aka HOT HOT HOT in summer). I have spent a lot of time reading on coop designs and such and so much is focused on keeping them safe and warm that when I searched for ventilation articles it dawned on me that we have the opposite problem. Yes where I live does get cold, (even below freezing at night in the winter), while planning a 4 walled structure am I basically making a chicken oven they will cook in come summer? A few things I read stated that solid hardware cloth walls for 1 or more walls isn't a terrible idea. My biggest concern is keeping them safe though. We have a decent sized area to work with but I am not looking to spend a fortune. My biggest predators I am guessing are hawks and coyotes. Our neighbors have hens in a shoddy little area and have no problems so maybe coyotes don't like to jump 6' wire fences? Anyways looking forward to learning and hopefully having a safe set up in about 4 weeks so my babes can move outside!

I'm in a warm part of Tucson, running about 4-5 degrees hotter in the summer and 4-5 degrees colder in the winter than the "official" Tucson temperatures. There is a delicate balance between shade and air flow and predator control. I have a variety of structures and they each have their own positive and negative points. Remember in the summer the sun swings to the northwest by the mid afternoon, which means you need shade on the NORTH side as well as the west from March through September.

My favorite design is my breeding pen/s. That structure is 6' deep x 12' wide, with a slanted rolled roof. I made it 6' deep so I could use 8' plywood for the roof and have it overhang a foot or more on the back. It has almost 7' of height in the front and about 6' height in the back. If I had to do it over again I would figure out how to make it deeper and still keep the overhang, because the sun nearly hits the back wall for a couple of hours each day in the winter. A front "porch" would help a lot. Three sides are enclosed, but there are several inches of ventilation space along the top edge of each of the solid walls, which I screened in with hardware cloth. The front "wall" is entirely hardware cloth, with 80% shadecloth covering most of it. The front faces south. It could use some additional solid sections for deeper shade. There are three separate doors in the front. I can section the structure off into up to three pens during breeding season, or remove section dividers as needed.

My next favorite design is my original coop/run, which is 12' x 14', enclosed on 3 sides, with lots of windows (screened with hardware cloth) under the eaves. There are side wings separating the front run area from the back "coop" area, with about 6' in the middle that is open to the run section. There are roost perches in each side wing. The run is enclosed with hardware cloth. I originally shaded the run part with shadecloth, but I quickly tacked up some plywood over the run for shade because the shadecloth was not sufficient. I just sectioned off one wing of it to use as an outdoor chick brooding area. We will see how that works. So far, so good.

Basically, the birds need sufficient deep shade. They need access to sun as well. They need to be out of major drafts, they need to stay dry, they need lots of water, and they need to be protected from predators. As long as they are dry and shaded they should be fine in the winter.

(I have one "coop" that is simply a 10' x 10' chain link dog kennel with a tarp over it, and a perch. The sides are shaded with a combination of shadecloth, reed fencing, and plywood sections fastened up. It was intended as a temporary overflow space but it has been in continuous use for two years now and the chickens have been fine. I do go through a lot of tarps. It is not the best setup. But it works.)

Predators in my area are usually loose dogs who break into the yard and kill any chickens that happen to be out. I have dealt with that by sectioning the yard into different areas with 2"x4" wire fencing supported on T-posts, so the dogs have to break into several different sections to get to all the birds. Most of my fencing is only 4' high and any determined predator could get in, but it is what I had on hand. If you can go with 6' fencing it would be better. A determined predator is still going to figure out how to get in, no matter what you do. It's like locking your car. Most of the time it works

If the chickens are properly acclimated and can get out of the sun, rain, and wind they will be fine.

Good luck!

 

[theback40]

Welcome, ScottiO!!

congrats on your new babies! i just became a chickie momma in Jan, n we just "finished" (are we ever reeeeally done w these things?? lol) a "hoop" coop, and really love it!!! if i could figure out how to upload a photo, i'd do it,, but suffice it to say, after much research on what exactly would b the best for our hens, our abilities, (and our neighbors), we chose this style and are soooo happy w it!!!!

the main components were-

the structure-
a ground frame of 2 x 4 untreated lumber, 8' wide by 16' long (needs to be about 8' wide, if you wanna be able to stand up inside, but you can make it however long you want)
"cattle panels" (50" x 16'). these get bent (easy) into your 8' wide lumber frame. that makes the upside down "U" shape of the coop.
hardware cloth to cover everything. we have coyotes, feral cats, racoons, hawks. we added a hardware cloth skirt at the bottom, which we will bury, to discourage digging predation.

the platform-
my wonderful hubby built a raised plywood deck (7' wide-not 8', bc the arc is less wide at the height of the platform, which is 3' high, and 5' deep). i covered the deck w cheap vinyl flooring, so coop cleaning would b easy peasy. what makes this so cool is that it: a) increases square footage by providing an extra floor (this is where the nest boxes will go, n where i put their feeder, too), b) best of all, the 'downstairs'/'ground floor' (literally) is well shaded, ALL THE TIME. the can dust bathe n relax all day, keeping nice n cool!!

the roof-
i had planned to make it easy on my wonderful hubby n just use a tarp for the roof, covering only 1/2, bc it is a coop and run.... but he wanted to give the gals a nice roof.
we found some corrugated plastic (idk if they are plastic, fiberglass, etc, but whatever they are,, we do know this type won't last as long as the corrugated metal, which you could CERTAINLY use!) panels at home depot, n used that as the roof.
the key, i think, was in the silver padded insulation that my hubby put between the cattle panels and the corrugated plastic, for extra temperature protection!!!

the "extras"-
the nesting boxes will be accessible from the outside
the roof panels stick out further than the coop on one side for extra protection in bad weather
the very south side of the coop has a clear corrugated plastic, to maximize the sunshine in winter
these are only a few of the sweet little extras we hope our gorgeous girls will enjoy!!!
it is 6' at the highest part, so it isn't seen over the fence, n has a low 'profile', so it doesn't look like yet another building on our property!!!



i hope you will look into this style if you haven't already. we are not carpenters, so this saved us from trying to figure out all the building do's n don'ts... again, sorry no pictures

 

[bunsnpupsnchick]

I have the same philosophy, plus I use a product called Verm-X up to four times per year. It's 100% natural and actually healthy for them to eat.

Haven't seen worms, but doesn't mean there aren't any. Some are filling out more & others still lean.

I'm leaning towards worming soon. Wanted to give it a few bags worth of the gamebird food. I do need to add acv to the water. They're leaving food behind & behaving great. Egg size, etc is good too.

I'll have to look up verm-x.

Thank you both!

 

[bunsnpupsnchick]

Thank you all for the encouragement folks.  I just keep second-guessing myself thinking I've made the wrong decision and am a little apprehensive/nervous about the whole deal, but something had to change and I couldn't keep going down that path.  It was really wearing on me.

Oh, that big structure that you see is my RUN, and I'm constantly redesigning the coop to go in there, and it will be a gem when I complete it.   I just sit and draw, draw, draw everything from scratch. I don't know why I got obsessed with 4x4 lumber and 2x6. The foundation boards will disappear once I get some deep litter going.  It will eventually be a big play pen with plenty to keep the girls busy.  Thanks to all your suggestions, there will be enough to keep them occupied.  After the coop is built, I will have to go into "Interior Decorator" mode for the run, perches, stuff to climb on, hang some swinging veggies, places to dust bathe etc.

Thanks again for your well wishes and prayers. God didn't create us to fail.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it. --BB

As someone who's disabled... You're right in taking care of your health first. Congrats. It'll take a bit of adjustment, but I'm sure you'll keep busy.

 

[Bobby Basham]

As someone who's disabled... You're right in taking care of your health first. Congrats. It'll take a bit of adjustment, but I'm sure you'll keep busy.

Thanks for allowing me to air out my "dirty laundry." I was just plain p*****d off, frustrated and angry every day, and it was wearing me down. I won't make mention of it again and I'm just through dealing with that daily madness. --BB

Bobby Basham
Tucson, Arizona