High Desert, California!!

[Alwayswantchics]

Hi. Phelan here. New to chickens. Have 5 hens and a rooster. Want to hatch some eggs. Made am incubator but no luck. Now I think I just want day old chicks. Want then for eating. Any help.

 

[perchie.girl]

Hi. Phelan here. New to chickens. Have 5 hens and a rooster. Want to hatch some eggs. Made am incubator but no luck. Now I think I just want day old chicks. Want then for eating. Any help.

Probably better to buy some Meatie chicks, to raise up. Cornish cross are ready to butcher at about six weeks.

deb

 

[Alwayswantchics]

Know where I can get some local and cheap?

 

[nikki1]

Hi, all! I was born a desert kid at the Antelope Valley Hospital. Raised in Lancaster, graduated from AVHS...a long time ago. I went off to college and came back to teach at Mojave Elementary for 2 years. My mom still lives in Tehachapi. I live in Washington now, and I love it here, but I know my roots. When the wind stops blowing, I still sometimes fall over.

Just wanted to say hi, and to leave you with this laugh...We're having a serious heat wave here in western Washington. Yesterday it was 80, and today it's 83!!! (If you want to get a chuckle, check out the Washingtonians thread, and look at what people are doing to help their birds survive the extreme heat. Just don't tell them I sent you there.)

Wishing you calm winds, clear skies, and a working air conditioner.

--Nikki
My girls looking to come into the kitchen to share the spaghetti.

 

[perchie.girl]

I believe Redwing hatchery is in your neck of the woods. They sell mostly to feed stores. They dont have a website but here is their contact info from a google search. Or you can order from any feed store in the country Most ship. Minimum oders are usually for 25 chicks to fill one chick shipping box. Murray Mc Murray is the best known.

Redwing Hatchery
49001 100th Street East, Lancaster, CA
(661) 946-2830 ‎

McMurray website:
http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/meat_birds.html

quoted from McMurray About their cornish Rocks.

""Males will dress from 3 to 4 pounds in six to eight weeks and females will take about one and one-half weeks longer to reach the same size.""

I never raised them up but I know they have to be butchered because they get too heavy to stand eventually.

 

[perchie.girl]

Hi, all! I was born a desert kid at the Antelope Valley Hospital. Raised in Lancaster, graduated from AVHS...a long time ago. I went off to college and came back to teach at Mojave Elementary for 2 years. My mom still lives in Tehachapi. I live in Washington now, and I love it here, but I know my roots. When the wind stops blowing, I still sometimes fall over.

Just wanted to say hi, and to leave you with this laugh...We're having a serious heat wave here in western Washington. Yesterday it was 80, and today it's 83!!! (If you want to get a chuckle, check out the Washingtonians thread, and look at what people are doing to help their birds survive the extreme heat. Just don't tell them I sent you there.)

Wishing you calm winds, clear skies, and a working air conditioner.

--Nikki
My girls looking to come into the kitchen to share the spaghetti.

LOL.... I am in San Diego High Desert.... kind of different from Lancaster, Phelan, Ridgecrest.... But I have family too in Inyokern and Ridgecrest. Love that comment about falling over when the wind stops blowing.... too true. My little slice of heaven gets onshore breezes from sixty miles away from the pacific then off shore breezes from Arizona which is the opposite direction. Both are dry for the most part.

We are having a heat wave here too. More like 100s Its amazing what you get used to as the ""norm"". And what the chickens do to get cool. Mine just pluck out a few feathers and they are fine. What we don't realize is where the climate is normally more humid those 80 degree temperatures can have a heat index closer to 100 degrees. Just like wind chill.

deb

 

[nikki1]

People never believe me when I say it's not muggy here. We're close enough to the ocean that when we have an onshore, moist flow, it's cool. When it heats up, it's because we have an offshore flow, and our air is coming from the eastern Washington deserts, and we're dry. So we're either warm and dry or cold and clammy, but very rarely hot and muggy. Couldn't live here if it was. Spent one summer as a kid in Virginia and just about DIED with the muggy. I could never live in the southeast...

--Nikki

 

[debryman]

Hey Nikki,

We haved lived in Joshua Tree for the past four years having come from Western Washington where I lived for 40 years. Our kids are all still up there and actually LOVING this heat wave after the terrible spring you all just had. I am happy for them but worried for any pet owners like yourself as this extreme is such a shock to their systems not being acclimated and all. If it wasn't for our misters I would be worried for my hens too. Many friends have lost their chickens and even more have stopped laying. Hope all bodes well for you!

 

[perchie.girl]

Hey Nikki,

We haved lived in Joshua Tree for the past four years having come from Western Washington where I lived for 40 years. Our kids are all still up there and actually LOVING this heat wave after the terrible spring you all just had. I am happy for them but worried for any pet owners like yourself as this extreme is such a shock to their systems not being acclimated and all. If it wasn't for our misters I would be worried for my hens too. Many friends have lost their chickens and even more have stopped laying. Hope all bodes well for you!

I wish I had enough water pressure to do misters. They would be integrated with the roof in my coop if I did. As it is I am running water from a big water storage tank Best I can do is dump their water in the middle of the coop to get the ground moist they then take a damp dustbath in it.

deb

 

[nikki1]

My girls are fine. They have some cool, shady shrubs and lots of shady places. I actually love the cool, drizzly springs here. All I have to do is watch the Weather Channel during the spring, and I remember that any day without a tornado is a good day! No sense getting all whiny about grey, when other people have life-threatening weather. Funny that I have absolutely no fear of earthquakes--I have lots of education with those--but I have an absolute horror of tornadoes. Go figure.

Funny aside: During the 2001 Nisqually earthquake centered in Olympia, I was teaching math to my 3-4-5 graders. We all took cover and got out of our elderly building with a lot of adrenaline, but no injuries. My Washington kids were worked up, but okay, but my new transplant from Nebraska was totally freaked out. He was just the opposite of me. He knew tornado drills and warnings very well, but the earthquake thing was just too weird for him. (That, and a clock fell off the wall and smacked him in the foot.)

--Nikki