Arizona Chickens

[Mahonri]

Light brown leghorn is still alive... she's walking around but still isn't back to her normal self....I'll continue to keep her cool.

Anyone heard of Sunrider International? DW and I went to a "product" meeting this evening. Interesting.

 

[NoSkiveez]

Mahonri-glad fo hear your leghorn is still hanging on.

I've decided one of my pullets is a rooster. Having said that, he is searching for a new home.
He is a Mottled Houdan. Hatched 03/14/2010. Pm me if you want this boy.

 

[AZKat]

My chickens are still handing the heat well. I've been turning on the misters about noon, and turning them off about 6. The run is getting muddy under the misters, but otherwise its working pretty well. I think that the coop being made of cinder block is helping as well, even in the hottest part of the day its noticeably cooler inside the coop.

I think that Betsey, my Barred Rock is starting to get done with the chicks. She's starting to spend more time away from them, and tonight she was up on the perch with the rest of the flock instead of down on the floor with the chicks.

Egg production is way down again. At most I'm getting 6 eggs a day, and most days its more like 2-4. The only really reliable layers are my Blue Andalusian, Inara and my RIR, Theresa. I'm thinking that next fall, I might start to phase out my other birds and switch my flock over to those two breeds. If Cutie turns out to be a good layer, I'll keep Jayne and see if I can develop a strain of heat-tolerant EE's by crossing him with hens who lay well in the summer.

I re-listed the pullets I still have on craigslist, but so far haven't gotten any nibbles. Which is ok with me, it doesn't cost that much to feed them and the bigger they get the more money I can get for them.

 

[squeakyballs]

NoSkiveez - I'm sorry to hear about the pullet turning out to be a rooster. Was this the one that you liked the most?

Mahroni - I'veever heard of Sunrider International. Wikipedia has an interesting entry on them, it looks like they donate to a lot of charities. I thought this was interesting:
"In 1992 a jury in Phoenix, Arizona, concluded that Sunrider had violated Arizona's racketeering laws and out of court Sunrider settled for $650,000 to a woman who claimed that Sunrider products have had a negative effect on her health.[18][23] The company points out that no one else had negative effects from the products, and the woman's boyfriend admitted several years later to spiking the products with the toxic element thallium to force Sunrider into an out-of-court settlement "

AZKat - Cinder Blocks must make a huge difference! I recently heard about a crazy "rammed-earth" house... they used old tires, packed them with clay/dirt, stacked them, and I think stuccoed the outside. It was supposed to be much cooler during the summer (and warmer during the winter). Kind of like the strawbale houses, I think. They would probably make an awesome coop here. But, I bet they'd be a huge eyesore if you weren't super creative. ;-)

SUNFLOWER SEEDS - I put them in the mailbox this morning... I didn't pad the envelopes or anything fancy. The post office was closed today or I would have had them double check the postage. I hope one stamp was enough! The envelopes weighed about .25 ounces each so I think it should be okay.

 

[rufus]

Mahonri, my two cents, this sounds like another multi level marketing scheme like Amway. While the products are good, they pass through so many levels being sold and re sold that they are only good for re selling. They are too expensive to actually use. Some are so expensive you don't know whether to sniff them or inject them.

My instincts tell me to avoid these schemes, especially if you met these people in church. First there was the life insurance company that I bought stock in back in 1958 that has never paid a dividend, then there was Legend City that went bust, then there was the chinchilla ranch and then the worm farm.

The only one that came near to success was the chinchilla scheme. But what do you do with a thousand chinchilla pelts, no two of which match. Worse, you cannot even make a decent meal out of chinchillas.

The best place for your money now days is in the stock market. Gold is more secure, but what do you do when the government takes it away from you like they did in the depression? Roosevelt and the Democrats effectively stole the life savings of the country, paying only twenty dollars an ounce for the nation's gold.

I recommend Clean Energy CLNE and Westport Engines WPRT.

But what do I know? My kids tell me I should have bought stock in Microsoft rather that those schemes.

Rufus

 

[CheerfulHeart2]

Quote:

 

[Mahonri]

112 in our backyard again today. 3 eggs today. The forecast doesn't look promising.

Rufus, you are right about the price of their products. The fellow that referred me to the program was not from Church.... just an acquaintance. Interestingly, even though it can be a multi-level marketing thing, this guy who is sold on the thing and referred me has no desire to be "upline" with the products, he simply thinks they can help me "regenerate". Sounds like the borg is coming after me... He also takes other products (from different companies) that cleanse his liver, kidneys and digestive tract and swears by them. He's 6'2" like me and only weighs 225 but he is solid as a rock and 60+ years old and looks much younger.

 

[AZKat]

Tucson Tofu: I've heard of those houses. They're called 'earthships', there are a bunch of pictures of the finished houses on the website www.earthship.com. I think that the houses are really pretty-the stucco usually covers up the tires, so when its all done you can't tell what the building is made of at all. I think something like that would be a really good chicken coop, and would probably be pretty cheap, at least if you could find a source for old tires.

 

[rufus]

I am not too sure about building houses with tires. If they ever catch on fire, you can never put them out.

Rammed earth and adobe sound good though. They tend to have problems with scorpions and spiders, but if you keep chickens in them they will take care of the problem.

I foresee a lot of problems with building inspectors though. You might have better luck building with adobe in Tucson rather than Phoenix.
People in Phoenix all came from somewhere else and they just are not used to adobe.

Rufus

 

[gckiddhouse]

Hey all, still having problems with getting my notifications. Still get my notifications from every other thread I am subscribed to, but this one peters out.

it is hot. The misters are supposed to go on several times a day, but for some reason the GFI keeps getting tripped and then it doesn't go on at all. Hopefully we have it fixed, but they have survived a couple really hot days while we figured it out.

Got them all through some respiratory disease. Everyone seems good. Just gotta get rid of some roosters. Don't like the idea of butchering in this heat.

Stupid roosters.

Anyone heard from ArizonaNessa? Nessa, you out there??