Arizona Chickens

[BlueBaby]

I must be getting old, because I remember these thing's too.

 

[BlueBaby]

How is everybody's flocks doing? Mine are doing well, and I have a few of the pullet's that have been starting to lay egg's now.

 

[BlueBaby]

So far this month the pullets have given me 111 egg's as of today. They are saying that the temp here will be 91 on Thursday. .

 

[EmmaDonovan]

My heart can't seem to decide if it wants to keep doing its job or not so I am not doing many chickeny things these days. Most of the chicken care has been taken over by my roommate.

She wasn't home today and I heard the chickens sound the alarm, so I went outside to see what was going on. A young red-tailed hawk had gotten into one of the empty pens. It caught a dove (probably why it went in there) and was having it for dinner.

I chased it off, repaired the hole it had made in the wire and cleaned up the dove carcass. There were bits of dove and feathers everywhere, across three pens. I bagged up everything and threw it out. The hawk hung around and watched me, giving me the stink eye for having stolen its dinner. It flew off just before dark. The chickens finally calmed down and everyone is sleeping quietly now.

My question is: what else do I need to do to clean up after the hawk? Our hens don't free-range so their exposure to wild birds is minimal. We don't want them to pick up mites or anything else. Do I need to disinfect the pens? How do I do that? The hawk was feasting on top of a plastic milk crate. I hosed it off, do I need to do anything else to it?

(Note that these are temporary pens only used with supervision; they are not predator proof and no chickens live in them.)

One good thing came of this. Our flock has a lot of personality conflicts and they've been living as two separate flocks. One RIR can't seem to get along with anyone other than the other RIR (who gets along with everyone) so she's been living in a little "apartment" inside one of the coops. She shares the coop with four other hens, they're just separated by hardware cloth. The last time we tried to integrate her with the other hens she grabbed the nearest one, swung her around by the neck and ripped out a bunch of her feathers, so back into the apartment she went.

When the hawk attacked the dove in the other pen, it caused a big kerfuffle in that coop, which is only a few feet away. All five hens went hysterical. Either the RIR burst out of her apartment or another hen burst into it, there were so many flapping wings and so much dust it was hard to tell. Either way, the barrier was opened and suddenly they were all together.

The weird thing is they're getting along. We have a camera in that coop and I watched the whole thing on playback. Everyone was stunned for a bit, then as they all calmed down, the alpha hen gave the RIR a few "know your place" pecks and that was it. They're all roosting together quietly now. Who knew? We'll see how they're doing tomorrow but if they've decided they can all live together, great! We had four separate flocks not too long ago. If we've gotten them successfully integrated into two, I'm delighted.

Anyway. The hawk. What else do I need to do to clean up after it?

 

[EmmaDonovan]

You're welcome! If you've got more, tag me again.

You gave good advice but I think I messed up somewhere, maybe you can tell me where. I bought a new 10 gallon aquarium with a strong metal screen lid. Washed it thoroughly and dried it. Put in 4 lbs of organic wheat bran. Added sliced organic potatoes and carrots. Added Uncle Jim's Worm Farm 1000 Count Mealworms (there were not 1000, maybe 100). The worms were active and looked healthy when I put them in. I fed a few to the chickens and they slurped them right up.

I set the aquarium up outdoors underneath our coop which is about 3' off the ground. The aquarium is on bricks in a small tub of water to keep the ants out. The coop provides shade plus there's a tarp over the entire coop area. The chickens don't have access to the space under the coop.

The mealworms died within 24 hours. They turned black and look flat and desiccated. What did I do wrong? Is it too dry here for them? It's 95F and 12% humidity today.

 

[notabitail]

You gave good advice but I think I messed up somewhere, maybe you can tell me where. I bought a new 10 gallon aquarium with a strong metal screen lid. Washed it thoroughly and dried it. Put in 4 lbs of organic wheat bran. Added sliced organic potatoes and carrots. Added Uncle Jim's Worm Farm 1000 Count Mealworms (there were not 1000, maybe 100). The worms were active and looked healthy when I put them in. I fed a few to the chickens and they slurped them right up.

I set the aquarium up outdoors underneath our coop which is about 3' off the ground. The aquarium is on bricks in a small tub of water to keep the ants out. The coop provides shade plus there's a tarp over the entire coop area. The chickens don't have access to the space under the coop.

The mealworms died within 24 hours. They turned black and look flat and desiccated. What did I do wrong? Is it too dry here for them? It's 95F and 12% humidity today.

Is there a chance that they couldn't breathe in there?

That does not seem normal. It should not be too dry for them. How hot is it under the coop?

Also, I'd try and contact Uncle Jim's. Considering how fast that happened I'm inclined to say something is wrong with the worms themselves. Maybe keep them inside for a night or two with the replacements to see what happens. I'd try to split your next batch in half when you put them outside to see if it's the outside that killed them, or if you really did just have a bad batch.