Glad to meet you, and welcome to BYC. You are sure going to have a bunch of lovely brown eggs!
You can find other Arizona chicken keepers by using the
State thread for Arizona here. (there are
often more than one state thread, so be alert). One tip that was great this past summer was the Texas chicken air conditioner: take jugs or bottles of water and freeze them to set out for the hens to sit near in a shady spot. My chickens sure appreciated it, even up here in New England!
Here are some articles I liked starting out:
1.
Intro to chicken keeping 1
2.
Intro to chicken keeping 2
3.
Ventilation w/ links to coop designs by climate (because a coop designed for my New England hens will not work for my Arizona brother's chickens)
4.
Predator proofing
You will notice that all these articles have been written by members or administrators of Back Yard Chickens. They have also been reviewed by other members. I like the reviews because, as a newbie, it helps me sort out the most worthwhile and useful articles. Also, some reviews have comments that add to the original article.
You can find lots more articles by using the SEARCH button, and choosing the Advanced search. Then, select to search ARTICLES. You can browse in the
ARTICLES section, but it's much harder to find a topic you are looking for that way. But it's a great way to stumble across things you didn't know you wanted to know!