California-Southern

[Half-Pint]

Oooooh that MG roo is gorgeous!!!

 

[mzhelaineous]

Hello Out There BYC Folks!

We live in Desert Hot Springs, which is 12 miles NW of Palm Springs...we just got 4 chicks on Tuesday and we're trying to find our way around the chicken raising business. We're building our own coop and I'm going to order in a pen so they can run about during the day without worrying too much about the raven, roadrunners and other desert predators. It gets pretty hot in the summer and at the TSC where we bought these little girls it said they are heat tolerant, but how much heat??? It gets into the 1-teens/twenties out here and I don't want our chickens to die from the heat! Do we need to look into misters for the yard or anything? We don't have any grass in our yard because we live in the foothills and the ground is not conducive to growing much of anything - heck I can't even get a tomato plant to grow out in the front raised bed! So all we have in the backyard is dirt and sand and lots of hard rock. I don't know what other folks do about heat and their flocks so any suggestions are welcome!! Thank you in advance and I hope to hear from all the chicken folk in the area!

 

[Burns Homestead]

H

Hello Out There BYC Folks!

We live in Desert Hot Springs, which is 12 miles NW of Palm Springs...we just got 4 chicks on Tuesday and we're trying to find our way around the chicken raising business. We're building our own coop and I'm going to order in a pen so they can run about during the day without worrying too much about the raven, roadrunners and other desert predators. It gets pretty hot in the summer and at the TSC where we bought these little girls it said they are heat tolerant, but how much heat??? It gets into the 1-teens/twenties out here and I don't want our chickens to die from the heat! Do we need to look into misters for the yard or anything? We don't have any grass in our yard because we live in the foothills and the ground is not conducive to growing much of anything - heck I can't even get a tomato plant to grow out in the front raised bed! So all we have in the backyard is dirt and sand and lots of hard rock. I don't know what other folks do about heat and their flocks so any suggestions are welcome!! Thank you in advance and I hope to hear from all the chicken folk in the area!

Hello, I live in Joshua Tree not to far from you by yucca valley. I provide a lot of shade during the summer and go out and spray the ground a couple times a day so far so good my biggest problem is coyotes we have been trying to keep away. I have had chickens hear for 9 years and summer hasnt been a problem.

 

[niqueie]

I've heard that shade goes a long way when it gets really hot. No chicken is that heat tolerant without some help. A large 13x9 pan filled with water is important too. They can get in it and cool off like a shallow pool. Keep loads of water around so you never run dry during the day too. Have fun. We have adored out chickens.

 

[mzhelaineous]

Joshua Tree is indeed close by! We have coyotes, but they seem to leave us alone because (or in spite of) our dogs...we have 4 at present, all rescues, but 2 of them are almost 14 yrs old so they don't really care about much other than eating and sleeping anymore, lol! We have a huge laurel tree in our backyard so I was going to have my son put the coop there and then I plan to order a chicken run so they aren't getting out of the fence all the time (it's a cyclone fence so it will be breechable, I'm afraid). I will definitely give the watering down the sand a few times a day a try - we already have a kiddie pool for the dogs, so we can just keep that filled with a bit of clean water for them as well. We have a small pond but there is a turtle and a bunch of koi in it and I don't know if it would be a good idea to let them intermingle as the fish are a dirty bunch and the turtle doesn't help anything. We are already attached and the girls (I'm hoping they're all girls!!) are all named already, so I am certain it won't be long before the chickens are running the house like everything else we have does! Thank you for the suggestions - we are very green at all of this so any advice is a plus!!

 

[mzhelaineous]

Thanks so much! I am hoping that it won't be so hot this summer that the poor things won't die in the heat - that is what I worried about most. I think all animals need to be in air conditioning when it's really really hot - I just can't see chickens roosting in the living room lol! Who knows - we tend to spoil our kids and animals, so don't be surprised if we end up with roosting hens on the couch!

 

[Burns Homestead]

Haha Just make sure you don't feel the pool chickens don't swim and will drown I don't know what kind you have but my bigger breeds I have some ducks in with and they do fine with the duck pool in with them

 

[Burns Homestead]

I'm Looking for a better hygrometer,. does anyone know of a good one and where to get it?

 

[Away2me]

These Hemet jokes are cracking me up! I have some people who want me to bring feed to Hemet & I have a friend in San Jacinto who can't travel who is bugging me to visit her & I'm like "Isn't Hemet in another country?" even though it is way closer than my San Diego run I do every other month. Honestly, our daughter got married at Heart Home Farm in Hemet & I couldn't have found a more beautiful place for a wedding! (But we did feel like we were driving to another country when we went there

I'm one of those recent folks who wants to buy feed!

 

[Away2me]

Hello Out There BYC Folks!

We live in Desert Hot Springs, which is 12 miles NW of Palm Springs...we just got 4 chicks on Tuesday and we're trying to find our way around the chicken raising business. We're building our own coop and I'm going to order in a pen so they can run about during the day without worrying too much about the raven, roadrunners and other desert predators. It gets pretty hot in the summer and at the TSC where we bought these little girls it said they are heat tolerant, but how much heat??? It gets into the 1-teens/twenties out here and I don't want our chickens to die from the heat! Do we need to look into misters for the yard or anything? We don't have any grass in our yard because we live in the foothills and the ground is not conducive to growing much of anything - heck I can't even get a tomato plant to grow out in the front raised bed! So all we have in the backyard is dirt and sand and lots of hard rock. I don't know what other folks do about heat and their flocks so any suggestions are welcome!! Thank you in advance and I hope to hear from all the chicken folk in the area!

We get that hot here in Hemet but we cool off in the evenings which helps! I was told to add some fresh fruit, like a couple of strawberries to the chicken's water to keep them hydrated. Also shade, shade & more shade. I think we might put in some misters. We had misters when I raised rabbits here. Rabbits HATE heat! All mine did fine with the shade a misters.

We bought a used coop off Craigslist this week. After cleaning it out real good (which I already did) I'm going to cut out more ventilation holes up top to keep some air circulating through it.