Arizona Chickens

[Sonoran Silkies]

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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?

Which breeds or classes were you particularly upset about? I know the pigeon folks were not happy, but I am not enough of a pigeon person to have any idea on the details other than what I do or do not care for (don't like the tiny beaks of owls at all; love the breeds with huge muffs; the pouters are a riot).

 

[ca]

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Go to a smaller nursery (not Home Depot or such, they are great for building materials...) and ask what plant would do well in your area. They should be able to give you friendly advice. You can choose from something with great flowers to something with fruit. As long as it climbs and is not poisonous to chickens. They will also tell you how to water it. That's when Home Depot comes in handy. Get a watering timer there and some piping, hook it up to the water system and off you go. Exciting!

Both Home Depot & Lowes warrant plants purchased there for an entire year; much longer than any other place. Most of hte plants they get in will grow quite well in the local area, although the exact location (sun/shade/reflected sun/dry/wet) can make a big difference. Sunset's Western Garden Book is an excellent resource.

Sorry, did not mean to keep anybody from the big stores. But good advice is hit and miss! If you have a good library book though that surely helps getting an appropriate plant.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

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Think about a grapvine trellis to camoflauge it. The chickens will love to eat what grows through.

Ooh! What a good idea! How would you do that with a chicken coop though? We are first time homeowners so we have never done all this gardening and landscaping stuff

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How tall is the coop, and how tall is your fence? If you plant a grape vine at either end, the individual vines will attach to the chicken wire and grow up the sides and over the top. There is nothing on top to cling to (an aluminum roof being "slippery" to the vine tendrils), so you might want to cover the top with wire that it can attach to. Grapes will die back in winter, though, so they may not be the best choice is you are trying to camouflage it from neighbor's view. Bower vine would be a better choice as it is evergreen; ditto for hardenbergia, passionflower, or even climbing roses.

 

[Lyongirl]

The fence is just slightly more than 6 feet in the back (maybe one or two inches) and the coop is just another inch or two above that. Our back yard gets a lot of sun because our lot is a North/South facing lot so it basically gets the sun all day. We have a lot of metal cloth because we were in the process of building a smaller coop and that is what we bought to build it with so it is possible we could cover the top with that..and it would def. be prettier than having just painted metal. We don't have a watering system in our backyard yet though..our house was a foreclosure and for some reason even though it is 10 years old no one ever did anything with the backyard. It's all dirt..and sometimes weeds

 

[Mahonri]

How did we lose 31 pages?????

 

[constance]

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I thought it was just me. The number of pages has changed each time I have logged on today. I have a recent post that disappeared, too!

 

[Bob's Henhouse]

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The quote from Nifty explains it.

 

[Nuclear Chickens]

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Aliens abducted them! It's a conspiricy I tell you! Sorry I watched a lot of TV this weekend.

 

[NoSkiveez]

Did 200+ pages of this thread disappear? I thought we were in the 970's and now were in the 730's???

 

[NoSkiveez]

Ok, Nevermind. I see what happened. I thought I missed something either really interesting or I was loosing my mind.