Arizona Chickens

[Lyongirl]

So..I still have those roosters (haven't been able to get rid of them yet). I have a few questions. How do you, personally, process your chickens? Do you do it yourself or is there somewhere you could take them to? At what age can you process them? We were thinking of keeping them for their meat but if they crow before they can be processed then that's not a possibility...and there's no way I could do it. I'm too emotional of a person when it comes to animals.

 

[Mahonri]

I'm contacting the seller of my new FBCM roo to see if she wants to have it back. He has attacked me twice in two days.

Otherwise he's available to any of you or Saturday my boys are going to learn how to process roosters.

 

[Bob's Henhouse]

Mahonri, did you try knocking the snot out of it? My polish attacked bot of my boys, and tried to sneak up behind me and attack. After it attacked my boys I chased it with a 2X2 by 6 foot stick, and knocked it about 15 feet, after it got up and ran off I beaned it with a rock. Thought I killed it but they are tougher than I thought. We picked it up after that and held it so it knew we were bigger and badder than he was, and ever since it hasn't attacked anyone. That was several months ago, been behaving ever since.

 

[Mahonri]

I smacked it in the head both days, today after he made me bleed I hit him harder and it didn't seem to faze him at all... it was like he wanted to fight. I'm about to put the old roo back in, he'd beat the snot out of him.

 

[AZKat]

I'm going to be on the coop tour-my house is in Mesa, on Vineyard.

Lyongirl: I've processed a few meat birds. Its actually really easy to do, at least in terms of the actual physical act. Emotionally, it wasn't as easy to kill a bird that I'd raised from a chick, but in the end, they had a better life, and a more merciful death than most chickens get. You might want to check the meat bird section, but I think that BR cockrels are usually big enough to be worth eating at around 16 weeks.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
Attack him and he feels he needs to attack you back. He needs to view you as being like a tree or storm or other force of nature; that it doesn't matter what he does, it will not affect you. Good article on browneggblueegg.com on taming roosters. Also, an upended laundry basket will contain them when necessary. Tie an old shoe to their leg as a hobble to keep them from jumping high or running very fast.

 

[newchickmom09]

Hello everyone! It has been months since I was on BYC.

My computer took a crash then my internet got all crazy but now things are back on track. My hens are just about at the end of there mult and boy did they look terrible for a while. They stopped laying also and now since it has gotten cold I am just keeping my fingers crossed that maybe one might start up again. My blue andalusian is just old enough to start laying so maybe she might start even though winter is deffiantly here now. My two roos that I had went to a new home a week ago. One was an EE and the other was my SLC that I wanted to be a hen so bad. The ducks are all doing good, no one is laying either in that department.

rufus: you will be so happy with your apricote tree. Ours is about 20 years old now and this past year we had amazing fruit.

 

[constance]

I MISSED THE SHOW!

I am quite disappointed, but it just didn't work out. Now I'll have to wait to find new ladies until after the 2nd week in December. We'd really like to get some 3-day olds and would like to diversify our flock. Does anyone have favorite place in S. AZ to get youngsters? I just can't see placing a big order from one of the hatcheries when we can only add 3 or 4.

Thank goodness it is warming up today!

 

[Tanichca]

Quote:

the show wasnt anything special. The judges were horrible! They gave the prizes to the birds of the people who were their friends or who gave money to the show, even if the birds were downright HORRIBLE.

Well if you just want layers, get some from a feed store (OK feeds in Tucson has some good birds) or try CRAIGSLIST! For SQ birds, find a good breeder. What breeds were you looking for?

 

[Lyongirl]

Check out my $50 find from Craigslist..just got delivered by the guy who was selling it today:

That's our boxer in the third picture so if you know how big those dogs are you can see how large this coop is. My husband and I were standing in it comfortably and he's 6 ft. tall. It needs a few minor repairs and we plan on painting it so it looks a little nicer but I'm way excited! The coop we were going to build wasn't going to be anything close to this size!

I told my DH that this means I can get like 50 chickens now..right?