Arizona Chickens

[Puffycheeks]

How many of you let your chickens free range during the day? Do you lose any to hawks?

I live in central North East Phoenix and have always free ranged all my chickens 100% of the time and have Never lost any to hawks. The only thing I lost to a predator was a baby duck that my neighbors cat brought home to her. She freaked out and put it in her microwave and came back later and found the baby alive and called me. Glad to say the baby was fine and unhurt . I think the kitty was looking for a playmate!!! LOL

Never had that problem again!! Free range rules, but it can be a challenge to find all of your eggs!!! Also I run muscovy ducks and geese with them and no hawk wants to tangle with adults of either of those!!!

 

[Puffycheeks]

NO MEAT TURKEYS HERE!!!!! These are light breds/ ornamental. Soorry!!!!

 

[In2Ice]

Quote:

• Location: Gilbert AZ
• Joined: 5/2012
• Posts: 8
• offline

I walk out and see my 4 week old buff opington chick sprawled over out on its side, legs outstretched. I thought it was dead. My heart dropped! I ran over to it and it got up and looked at me like "Hey! Why are you disturbing my sleep?" LOL I didn't know they do that! I also saw that my 2 4 week old chicks are now sleeping/sitting with my rescued quail all huddled together. I am glad the quail has company but I am not sure how enthused she is about it!

I came home from work one night when my chickens were about 7 weeks old and my daughter was all upset. She said that she thought Parmesan (our Light Brahma) was dying. She said she was twitching, flailing and kicking and stretching out her legs, wings and neck and rolling around like she was having a seizure. She said she picked her up and calmed her down and she was ok. Little did we know at the time that Parmesan was "foux" dust bathing in her brooder box. The box was lined with newspaper at the time.

When her and the others did it again she said "Daddy, that's what Parmesan was doing when I thought she was having a seizure". We all learn some things about our birds the hard way.

 

[pdx2phx]

With our first batch of "teenagers," I thought they were having strokes the first time we let them out of the brooder and they found the sun.....they'd be walking along, the ruff would stand up on the backs of their necks and they'd just fall over with wings and and legs outstretched and stay that way for a while

Once I realized this was normal/they were just sun-bathing, I took photos and emailed them to friends who thought I was taking pictures of dead chickens and sending them out.....lol

 

[Mikey D]

Are those crickets I hear?

How old are those spitz now? That's a big step for them! One of my cockerals was stalking the outside of the big coop tonight and I thought he'd get the nerve to go in, but he went back to hang with his brothers in the tractor after all the ladies went to roost.

Spitz are 3-1/2 months old (roughly)

I thought it was pretty brave of them too. All of them except for Flopsy were in there.

They are really great fliers. At 6-7 weeks I saw one of them hovering 4' off the ground deciding whether or not to go over the fence.

There might be some clipped flight feathers in the near future.

 

[Novaleigh]

My chickens free range all day. No problems here. I never had any problems with cats or hawks or owls. The biggest issue I have had was with neighborhood dogs. And from what I read, statistically, neighborhood dogs are a pet chickens #1 enemy.

How many of you let your chickens free range during the day? Do you lose any to hawks?

 

[Kurrudii]

How many of you let your chickens free range during the day? Do you lose any to hawks?

I live out in very rural Apache junction (Ironwood and mcdowel) and I used to let my chickens out all day to scratch around in the horse pens. The hawks came after about 2 days of this and the peepers hid under the horses. Now I have to keep an eye on them, the hawks normally appear after about an hour of them out. Owls and hawks like to roost on top of my chicken coop, they look at me asking "is the buffet still open?"

They are getting bold.

 

[Kurrudii]

I just got back from college and looking to expand my coop to accomidate 3 bantams and 1 crippled hen(pretty sure its a rooster now

) What will be a good way to introduce the bannies to my older flock, which is 1 barred rock, 1 RIR, and 1 bantam. The Barred rock seems to be the top hen right now, and my bantam has been mean to other pullets.

As well as cheap supplies to make a larger addition to my current coop?

 

[itsredcandy]

I came home from work one night when my chickens were about 7 weeks old and my daughter was all upset.  She said that she thought Parmesan (our Light Brahma) was dying.  She said she was twitching, flailing and kicking and stretching out her legs, wings and neck and rolling around like she was having a seizure.  She said she picked her up and calmed her down and she was ok.  Little did we know at the time that Parmesan was "foux" dust bathing in her brooder box.  The box was lined with newspaper at the time.   When her and the others did it again she said "Daddy, that's what Parmesan was doing when I thought she was having a seizure".  We all learn some things about our birds the hard way.

I had the same reaction as your daughter. I thought for sure my chick was seizing. I caught 4 of them seizing together in the sand under the playground equipment yesterday. I am uploading the video to youtube now.

 

[itsredcandy]

I just got back from college and looking to expand my coop to accomidate 3 bantams and 1 crippled hen(pretty sure its a rooster now  )  What will be a good way to introduce the bannies to my older flock, which is 1 barred rock, 1 RIR, and 1 bantam.  The Barred rock seems to be the top hen right now, and my bantam has been mean to other pullets.  

As well as cheap supplies to make a larger addition to my current coop?

Not sure about the introduction phase, I just put mine out and let them work things out. The coop and yard are big enough that they can get away from each other if need be.

Nova (one of our fellow chickeneers) picked up a lot of lumber cheap at HD from the miscut and scrap bins. You can also keep an eye on CL for pallets.