California-Southern

[sol2go]

dna sexing
http://www.healthgene.com/avian-dna-testing/1306/

15.00 per bird that gets expensive for a bird you dont want.... for those who buy 20 chicks at 10.00 a piece for 200 dollars.... add an additional 300.00 to that

I would do it say for emus or very very rare or expensive breeding stock.

Not for a bunch of EEs....

There are bunches of places to find a roo a home.... among other things.

I am not adverse to sending them to freezer camp either. You spend so much money raising them up feeding them a controlled diet....

But then I can have just about as many roos as I want.

deb

I am interested in emus. Do you know much about them?

btw - I have a hard time "parting" with my roos, they have really nice personalities.

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
I love Roos.... they do a fabulous job when free ranging. hop on to the Emu threads they are very interesting birds. Silly silly silly when they are youngsters but you cant sex them till they reach maturity which I believe is at least a year.

I have seen them on Craigs list here in San Diego for a couple of hundred dollars. If it were me though I would go with chicks for the whole socialization thing. Plus they arent the brightest bird... so you have to literally baby proof or Emu proof your enclosure....

They also love a water wallow....

deb

 

[Amelia Egghart]

Anyone know of a silkie breeder locally who breeds sex links? I think I might have infected my neighbor with chicken fever.... LOL

 

[perchie.girl]

Anyone know of a silkie breeder locally who breeds sex links? I think I might have infected my neighbor with chicken fever.... LOL

 

[Sylvester017]

At what point did you realize you had a roo?!

I started suspecting at about 2 months - a friend was raising my 2 chicks for me while we were finishing remodeling our house and getting a coop set up for the two chicks. By 5 months old I told my friend he looked an awful lot different from his sister but she said you can't really know for sure. We brought him and his sister home at 6 months old and I was pretty certain he was a roo but decided we'd keep him because he was so sweet. By 7-8 months old he was crowing and so horny topping his sister 10-12 times in a row that we decided we needed to re-home him rather than wearing out mating one poor little pullet. He also crowed all day long like he was king of the hill and we aren't zoned for roos. We were attached to him and he was the sweetest little bugger but too male for our situation.

 

[mclanea]

Question for SoCal folks. We're new to this deal and I'm needing to build a coop/run in my backyard and the spot we've picked out currently has a tree. We're trying to decide if it's a good idea to take the tree out completely & incorporate the stump inside the run, trim it way back and leave part of it as a barrier for our neighbors, or just leave the tree so the coop/run gets some shade?

We're in San Diego about 8 miles inland. The spot gets sunlight up until mid-afternoon.

Thoughts? Would a picture help?

 

[Amelia Egghart]

Question for SoCal folks. We're new to this deal and I'm needing to build a coop/run in my backyard and the spot we've picked out currently has a tree. We're trying to decide if it's a good idea to take the tree out completely & incorporate the stump inside the run, trim it way back and leave part of it as a barrier for our neighbors, or just leave the tree so the coop/run gets some shade?

We're in San Diego about 8 miles inland. The spot gets sunlight up until mid-afternoon. 

Thoughts? Would a picture help? 

A picture would help but my gut instinct says shade shade shade! Of course, I'm a few more miles inland (19 I think?) and shade is at a premium.

 

[Sylvester017]

Question for SoCal folks. We're new to this deal and I'm needing to build a coop/run in my backyard and the spot we've picked out currently has a tree. We're trying to decide if it's a good idea to take the tree out completely & incorporate the stump inside the run, trim it way back and leave part of it as a barrier for our neighbors, or just leave the tree so the coop/run gets some shade?

We're in San Diego about 8 miles inland. The spot gets sunlight up until mid-afternoon.

Thoughts? Would a picture help?

I personally like trees in sunny hot California. However, because our backyard is a small cottage backyard like all the neighbors around us in a suburban area, we all decided to cut down our decades-old backyard trees to deter the rats and crows and hawks and raccoons and possums that come up from the freeway near our homes. I like trees for the sound barrier they provide and for the shade but I also know it gives wild critters access to my free-range backyard chickens so we chose to take our ancient orange tree out when our neighbors started taking their trees out. We have no plans for planting any new trees and especially not fruit trees since the one fig tree we had in the front yard attracted nothing but ants, nesting June bugs, and rats ate the fruit before it was ripe enough for picking. In lieu of losing the orange tree we put up a pop-up canopy for the hens to have shade and are having a patio roof installed also over the new Barn Coop located on a concrete slab. If you like the privacy and sound absorption a tree provides then keep it. If you like the idea of having a stump for the chickens inside the coop the chickens would love it. Your choice. Some things we did was set up canopies, lawn furniture, dog houses, lean-to's, thorny climbing roses, to have lots of shade and hiding nooks for the hens from the hawks or cover on hot sunny days:

 

[mclanea]

A picture would help but my gut instinct says shade shade shade! Of course, I'm a few more miles inland (19 I think?) and shade is at a premium.

Here are a couple of pictures of the spot.




Thanks for the responses!

That larger tree is what we're talking about getting rid of. If we took that out the space could be up 6x15. (18 square feet per hen) Now that I think about it if we cut the tree back it'd probably make the area a little cooler, but because of the position in the yard the tree would never cast a shadow over the coop, though the bushes to the left of it will. And we could easily use the tree to hang a sun sail.

I would assume we're a bit cooler than Fallbrook. But I don't want to stress them out when those winds kick up in the late summer either.

Also a good consideration about the critters, thanks for mentioning that. We've got 2 dogs and a cat... I'm primarily thinking about keeping them out. My office is actually in the backyard and I've not seen rats or raccoons. But we definitely have the occasional opossum.

Seeing the photos, anything else I should be thinking about? We're planning to have the coop towards the inside of the yard as opposed to up against that wall so that it's far enough away from the property line. But it's fine to have the run go up to the wall, I presume.

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote: I live in Santee... youd be surprised the kinds of wild life that scopes out the back yards in San Diego.... Up till the seventies we had deer in Balboa park... Guaranteed the presence of chickens will attract Raccoons and Rats.... Dont get me wrong chicken keeping is AWESOME.. but you have to be aware that your own personal dog and cat is not the only ones that might want to visit.

That being said if you can keep as much natural shade as possible do it. Put a top on that run too. once the top is on you can do just standard shade cloth for shade. Any part of the coop or run that is accessible to chickens should have hardware cloth installed. Hardware cloth is pretty much impenetrable by dogs and raccoons. this includes ventilation holes and or windows in the coop. Chicken wire is only good for keeping chickens in but does nothing to protect them from dogs and raccoons.

believe it or not even in the most urban areas of San Diego Bob cat will prowl occasionally. they are consummate jumpers and climbers. And you will NEVER see them.

Paruse the chicken coop pages for ideas. Beware of the store bought coops... like costoco or Tractor supply. Often times they will be put to gether quickly and will fall apart quickly....

Have fun.... i am sure others will chime in.

deb