Nevadans?

[Peep_Show]

Knemeyer,

Try the feed stores and ask them what they stock and when. Sometimes they can do a special order along with their shipments, especially if they think they'll get a good customer from it.

Me personally, I hatch or mail order direct. Haven't done either recently due to having to appease some City regs and cranky neighbors, but plan to get back into the hatching as soon as things are resolved. For small orders -- it looks like you aren't interested in 25+ birds -- you can try MyPetChicken.com which will sell as little as three chicks of assorted breeds....and they do have sex-links (Comets) and the other breeds suggested.

Then there is always Craigs List, which has some started birds...but kind of a grab bag as to selection, health and condition. Caveat emptor, but worth a look.

Hope you're flocking soon!


p.s.
My all-time favorite sex-links are Cinnamon Queens...a RIR or NH roo on Silver-Laced Wyandotte hens. Fabulous layers, heat tolerant, bears confinement well and fairly quiet. Unfortunately, only one or two hatcheries carry them (not MyPetChicken) and I haven't found a viable source yet for hatching eggs.

 

[Penturner]

Quote:
As for lower vent area. I was picturing a 1 foot tall by however long area that have a cover that can be opened and closed. say 3 to 4 feet total area. Covered in Hardware cloth and maybe the siding just has hinges on it. I agree to not vent any wall exposed to sun it will just let sun heated air vent into the coop. but on any wall that will have shaded air. I don't think even vents that large will help in the very worst heat though. 100 degrees and such will kill chickens. We will have a few days a year even here in Reno that we will have to be on guard. But our nights cool down. The outside run will be great for the day. What I am thinking about are your nights that still stay blisteringly hot. Just keep a close eye on them until you know what they can put up with. Anything other than eyes on is opinion and I am not so proud of mine that I think they are any better than anyone elses. I have heard of chickens being lost at 100 and above temps though. I am not sure how you would get through some of the heat I have been in down there without misters or something. Other places get hot. But LV has a different and deadly type of heat. I have seen shows and other stuff about how that dessert will dry a person up and kill them in a matter of hours. It gets hot in Kansas, but it will not kill you like LV heat will. I was born in Kansas and lived there until I was 16. I have been in LV for only a few days in my entire life. But I can tell you without question. you go to Kansas and you are gonna seriously wonder when it's going to get hot even on their worst day of the year. I've never seen anything like the heat that you all live in.

 

[evonne]

Quote:
http://www.cacklehatchery.com/cinnamonpage.html

that's an interesting sexlink combo... i was thinking the SLW are ssooo pretty... and i like RIR roos too... i may just have to get a pen of that combo... i had never heard of this cross.. thanks for the heads up....

i've been MIA due to facebook notifications hiding any notices, and i'm packing to move.. out to logandale.. home of the clark county fair and rodeo... 60 miles ish north of vegas...

but want to hear a funny coincidence??

i'm like going to be living 4 or 5 houses down from ke_ben!!!!!!!!!
totally not planned.... but a nice benefit since i don't know anyone out there...

once i get settled in out there and get some breeding pens made i'll look into getting a pen of cinnamon queens going...

 

[Peep_Show]

As I always tell my guests, "Yep, behind all the neon and glitz we are a high-altitude desert. Either one will quickly dehydrate you. Carry water and use moisturizer religiously."

The other folks I have talked to that have birds here say the first really hot day is the worst as far as ministering to the birds, and then they sort of acclimate. Still, nobody enjoys watching their birds panting with wings out or worse. Ergo, shade is vital. It's not surprising to see both misters and fans going in the runs.... and often times it is 100-degrees at midnight or so.

BUT -- and everybody chime in here -- it's a dry heat! I would rather deal with 105+ heat (105 is my definition of HOT, btw) and low humidity than, say, a Georgia summer of 89 degrees at 70+% or so humidity where you can't even sweat....

Chickens have no sweat pores, so their only means of cooling off are owner-provided. Part and parcel of being a conscientious care-taker. My latest coop design actually has a stick fan mounted inside it and an extra nest box to place a frozen milk jug into....plus an open-sided shaded run able to accommodate a mister fan. Heck, if I threw in a plasma screen I might spend more time out there chillin' with the peeps....

 

[Peep_Show]

Quote:
http://www.cacklehatchery.com/cinnamonpage.html

that's an interesting sexlink combo... i was thinking the SLW are ssooo pretty... and i like RIR roos too... i may just have to get a pen of that combo... i had never heard of this cross.. thanks for the heads up....

once i get settled in out there and get some breeding pens made i'll look into getting a pen of cinnamon queens going...

I'll be your first and best customer!!!!

I'd love to hatch out some eggs. (Oh, YES! Please!!!)

We all speculated you were bizzy with moving. Smart of you to get it underway and done before summer really starts.

Welcome back, evonne!

 

[Penturner]

peep show, Maybe it was that I grew up in the Humid heat. But it seemed to me that even though it was hot. you stayed wet when you sweat. In LV it sucked the moisture off your skin so fast you could not even tell if you where sweating for sure. I have a way of saying it that does not make a lot of since. But I always say the heat touches you in Las Vegas, it is not just around you. It gets up real close and personal and invades your space. I was able to go out and feed and water animals for an hour or so back home with out much problem. It woudl be 100 in the sun but the shade might be 15 degrees cooler. Heck I could not stand near our Hotel window for very long in Vegas. I crossed a parking lot while I was there and it was 100+ degrees. I was genuinely grateful the lot was not any bigger. Walking out of the lobby you could feel the heat 20 feet from the door. Maybe I just got softer with age. The strip is still something I think everyone needs to actually walk on at least once. It is now one of those things that simply cannot be explained. The Grand Canyon is the same sort of thing for me. Pictures just don't do it, you have to be there. I really enjoyed it when the sun went down because I am perfectly comfortable at 90 degrees. but when the sun was out. I saw heat waves looking for shade.

 

[SunnyDawn]

You are all sooo funny!

Evonne good to hear from you, hope your move goes smoothly!

Hey how do all of you feel about a Nevada chicken show/BBQ? Califonia is doing one but they have a lot more folks on BYC than we do. We could meet somewhere between Reno and Vegas. 'Course that would make it hard for our one Elko BYCer to make it.

 

[ke_ben]

Sunny that sounds pretty fun but I'm not sure if we could get everyone's schedule together. I would rather have the heat around here than 90-100+ with 90%+ humidity that I grew up with. There is no shade that cuts that and you feel like you need to shower when you get out of the shower!

When I first moved to So NV I work at an ice & cold storage place. There is nothing quite like going from -20 F working on a freezer coil to 110+ to work on a truck or refer unit. It is quite a shock to the system but except for allergy/hay fever related stuff, I never got a cold.

Peep_Show For egg production and feed conversion alone I agree that the sex-links are the way to go. They are small, light bodied, and lay huge eggs daily that won't even fit in the jumbo cartons. My favorites are some Red Stars? that I got from a local guy that look a little like McMurray's, almost the color of hatchery RIR's.

evonneHowdy, new soon to be neighbor, when is the next load? You will want to come by soon, my wife's new bottle baby is a 'mini' dwarf. Good luck on the packing.

Does anybody want any chicks from these eggs that are going to be eaten soon if not bought. The incubator is running and I could just throw in whatever anybody wants. The breeding pens are Welsummer, Marans, RIW, OE-olive egger, and Delaware. I could always throw in mutts too, including bantams. Just let me know but they would have to be picked up at hatching because I have no current brooder room.

Quote:

sounds like you are off to a good start. I have a little of everything in the flock and the only technique I use for cooling is misters. I haven't lost any birds to heat except 4 meat birds in June last year when the mister timer malfunctioned one afternoon. I processed the rest of them the next weekend, which was my plan anyway, so they were big already. I have since switched to fall meat birds. On the coop, I think that it is hard to get too much ventilation here even in the winter. The whole east side of mine is hardware cloth and provides them with a windbreak most of the time with north-south prevailing winds. Open eaves and the turbine vent are good ideas, plus any shade possible. Enjoy and good luck.

Have a great week all.

 

[Penturner]

Just an update on the Serama situation. Big Bird is growing like a weed and is past the 10 day start period that seems to be hard for Seramas to get through.
The Eggs I ordered from San Diego arrived yesterday and have been in the incubator since 7 last night. there are 8 of them 3 broken air cells but other than that I think they had a better trip. I can always hope. I also payed for a hen and a rooster yesterday from Catwalk here on the forums. She said the Hen is nothing to write home about but the Roo is a pretty good looking bird. He is the offspring of Royal The top right Rooster on her page and Freznel. you can see them here. https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=31816. The hen has started laying so she placed her in with Cannonball (Her Best Rooster) before packing her up. so there may be a dozen eggs or so packed inside the bird. on top of that she is stuffing an additional dozen eggs in with the live birds in hopes they will be handled more gently in that box. all of those eggs where sired by Cannonball as well. Cannonball won Best of breed last weekend over last years SCNA Champion. I'm thinking there might be some genes there to play with.

So for anyone that is trying to count, that is a grand total of a possible 34 birds in one form or another. sheesh

 

[SunnyDawn]

Wow that's a lot of birds! Ok I'm a little confused since the pic on the top right of my screen shows Freznel not Royal. In fact I didn't see a bird named Royal there at all but they were all beautiful birds, especially Freznel! Thanks for the pics. I was wondering what Seramas looked like. Good luck with this latest batch!