Arizona Chickens

[BlueBaby]

Are you folks referring to a NN Roo over an Australorp hen? What would the opposite yield? Just curious. --BB

Bobby, I did a Blue pure Australorp roo over a NN hen that has Easter Egger mixed in her.

 

[igorsMistress]

I also forgot to tell you, both their parents spent last winter in a drafty coop in Utah with temps regularly dropping into the single digits and only suffered a tiny bit of frost bite on their comb and toes. And then handled last summer like champs with temps up to 120, much better than than most of their coop mates. They come from very hardy stock.

They're smart too. I had to go get my granddaughter last night and was worried about them going into the coop with the others. I found them buried under the Australorps in the loft. They were toasty warm.

Today they've hung out by themselves mostly, but they very much enjoyed part of an apple and part of a cucumber this morning. They're exploring though

 

[BlueBaby]

@BlueBaby you're probably right

Seriously though, he came over and listened to me talk to to him and he wasn't grumpy even though he looked like a naked neck himself

He's still going through his molt, and the hens have been plucking some of his old neck and saddle feathers out and actually eating those. I have seen him just stand there and let them do it until he tires of it, and then he moves away from them.

 

[FeatherPugs]

@BlueBaby - those hens are looking for a bit more protein! Ha..ha.....but really, when I see this I usually try to send some cat food or meat their way. @Salty Skroob I have all sorts of mesquite around but wanted something different in my yard too so I planted two ash trees along one side (they were freebies). They are slow growing and require watering - although I often forget them for about month! And I also planted right in the middle of my yard a weeping mulberry (its about two years old). I love it, the chickens keep it trimmed as far as they can reach. It too requires water. When it grows up it will shade a lot more of the yard too.

 

[BlueBaby]

@BlueBaby - those hens are looking for a bit more protein! Ha..ha.....but really, when I see this I usually try to send some cat food or meat their way.

I have been giving them extra protein. My rooster started his molting after the hens did. The hen's about done now, but he's still going. Those feathers look so pretty when the new ones come back in. My Blue rooster was a 2017 New Years Day baby.

 

[DesertChic]

Question for you fellow Arizonans. I’m looking to plant a tree near my chicken bunker for shade. Any particular species I should stay away from? Leaves, seeds or pods that will not be good for the chickens or make the eggs taste funny.

Mesquite & Palo Verde are completely fine. My chickens nibble at leaves and seed pods without any problems. Oleander, though not really a tree but easily shaped into one, is the one plant I can think of that you should stay away from.

This year we started planting fruit trees in the chicken yard. The LOVE our young, small pomegranate trees and if you're not careful they will strip all fruit and leaves off of low-hanging branches. I hope to eventually see the trees get large enough to produce enough fruit for them AND us. I've also started mulberry trees and jujube trees from seeds recently. After just four days the mulberry seeds have sprouted, so I'm very hopeful that I'll have a few trees to plant come spring. No signs of life yet from the jujube trees, but both of those are very chicken friendly, and the jujube can also be trained more like a shrub wall if planted and maintained properly.

 

[azurbanclucker]

I really dislike coyotes. That is all.

 

[DesertChic]

I have always heard that australorpes and leghorns have been the most prolific layers, I had no idea NN's could produce like that! I'm definitely adding a few to my wish list. The mottled (or splash?) are too cute.

I don't have much splash in my flock yet but I'm slowly working towards it. In the near future I may also be adding more mottled, and I already have a lot of buff, red, and blue barring, some also with lacing. The trick for me is getting the pretty feathers without losing the other qualities I've bred to...either egg production or meat production (and I ALWAYS breed for temperament). Right now I place more emphasis on my meat line because even my meat producers are giving me 200-300 eggs per year. My number one meat breeding hen, now three years old and a beautiful buff barred girl, laid 290 pale blue eggs her first year and 186 her second in spite of going broody. She's not my biggest egg producer and yet has given me the majority of my meat breeding hens, all of which gave me 200+ eggs their first year and sometimes top out between 7 and 8 lbs each.

This is my Cocoa Puffs (photo taken in 2015) - mother to roughly half of my current flock: Her barring is actually coming in much stronger now that she's almost out of heavy molt and her body has filled out considerably, but she's notoriously camera shy.

 

[DesertChic]

He's still going through his molt, and the hens have been plucking some of his old neck and saddle feathers out and actually eating those. I have seen him just stand there and let them do it until he tires of it, and then he moves away from them.

Oh my gosh! Doesn't that just drive you crazy? Watching those girls just yank out their feathers and the boys just letting them? I've actually chased some of the girls away from my roosters because they're pecking so much, and the boys just look at me like "What's your problem? We have an understanding."

 

[cactusrota]

Question for you fellow Arizonans. I’m looking to plant a tree near my chicken bunker for shade. Any particular species I should stay away from? Leaves, seeds or pods that will not be good for the chickens or make the eggs taste funny.

I actually have a Tree of Heaven in my chicken yard and it does a good job, you just can't mind the volunteers that follow... but if you can protect them from the chickens you'll have lots more shade later on. They are a type of sumac, but not nearly as toxic/problematic. The chickens nibble on the leaves all the time. They're actually a bit medicinal. I really want some fruiting mulberries, but don't want to pay the price for them....