Arizona Chickens

[Novaleigh]

Hello fellow duck owners of AZ! I have a question. Dobby (our fawn runner) and Cupcake (our Magpie female) have been mating for the past 2 going on 3 weeks, several times a day, every day. No eggs yet. Should I be expecting an egg soon? Or do ducks just mate for fun with no eggish results?

 

[JohnSWA]

I bought one of those $10 misters at the Home Depot thinking that the girls would love it.... ungrateful brats are afraid of it LOL! Hopefully they will get used to it as it should help tremendously with this crazy heat.

 

[Novaleigh]

I bought one of those $10 misters at the Home Depot thinking that the girls would love it.... ungrateful brats are afraid of it LOL! Hopefully they will get used to it as it should help tremendously with this crazy heat.

HAHAHA!!! Ungrateful brats...HAHAHA!!! That cracked me up! Mine did the same thing. They avoided the mister. But once they realized that the temp was much lower near the source of the mister, they will gravitate towards it. Next thing you know? You have soaked chickens

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote: It can help to wrap the bird in a towel so that it cannot move much. I then put the bird in my lap sandwiched between my legs, either facing away from me or toward me. Then I have both hands available. One to hold the mouth pen, the other to administer the meds.

 

[Tanichca]

Has anyone else had hawk issues in the past few weeks? I've lost 6 in the last week alone, before I finally found where the chickens are escaping from and plugged the hole up. And, of course, the hawk went for the laying hens and show birds, instead of my useless mutt roosters that I'm going to cull anyway.

At least my turkens finally started laying!

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Don't muscovies eat ants?

I sure hope not. Think of all that formic acid!

If they did, I probably wouldn't have any ants, but I do.

 

[Billiam]

HAHAHA!!! Ungrateful brats...HAHAHA!!! That cracked me up! Mine did the same thing. They avoided the mister. But once they realized that the temp was much lower near the source of the mister, they will gravitate towards it. Next thing you know? You have soaked chickens

I installed a permanent mister system and I find that the ground gets muddy if I leave it on too long. It is about four feet off the ground so I am going to be raising it to seven feet to see if that helps. I tried the $10 one from HD too and I didn't like it for the same reason.

 

[MagicChicken]

I bought one of those $10 misters at the Home Depot thinking that the girls would love it.... ungrateful brats are afraid of it LOL! Hopefully they will get used to it as it should help tremendously with this crazy heat.

LOL! Same here. I installed a small mist system in the roof of the run. The chickens do NOT like it! I even tossed some scratch into the middle of the mist area to get them to see it wasn't so evil. Didn't work. They carefully walked all around the edges of the mist and refused to venture into the thick of it, even though they knew the mother lode of yummies was in there.

I think the scratch vs. mist dilemma was more stressful for them than the heat!

They did enjoy messing about in the damp dirt after the dreaded mist-thingy went off, though, so it wasn't all bad.

In a way I'm glad they don't like the mist system. Not using it will save on my already exhorbitant water bill. And I want strong chickens, not foo-foo chickens I have to worry about. So far, so good. They're just panting, which the wild birds are doing, too. Looks pretty normal to me. I'm not planning on using the mist system unless the chickens start to get really stressed out from the heat. And then it's all ready to go when/if needed.

 

[kevs-chickadees]

I have an idea for the ant + free range chicken problem. I think everyone is in agreement that Amdro is at the top of the list for effectiveness, but we fear our free range chickens will eat the crumbs as well. My solution is to build a netting system out of chicken wire or either one of those green house type things I've seen in the home improvement stores or one of those vegetable protectors to put over the ant holes. First pile/sprinkle the Amdro on top of the hole then place the netting/chicken wire over the hole to keep the chickens out. You could have multiple "traps" setup in your yard where ever you find the ant holes. You could secure the traps either by using garden staples around the base or if you make it with a flat top put a big rock on top. Just an idea for everyone to work with. I'll try it myself and let everyone know how it goes. BTW any ant killer you want to keep your chickens out of would probably work here.

Sounds like a good idea! I always just put the bait on the hill at dark when the chickens are roosting and piss them off on purpose. They come out and attack the closest thing, the bait and haul it down the hole in a matter of minutes. I find it rather fun!

 

[Novaleigh]

my problem is I have a hard time locating the nest. I have nearly an acre of very grassy property, and I am not able to find any obvious nest locations. Hmmm...