Texas

[Aggiedusty]

They are the paints of his artistic handy work on our canvass Mother Earth.

Good Golly, I’m being lazy lying under the covers all warm with my Australian Shephard near 11 yr old beside me and visiting on this Saturday morning. I smell coffee brewing and time for breakfast for all. Eggs for me of course! Also must check my humidity on the incubator with 8 days left to go on 41 Easter Egger eggs from my flock.. Eggsciting! Can hardly wait for those tiny chirping miracles!

 

[PerlyBee]

Do most of those reseed only like Mexican milkweed or have you found any that are perennial? Another super butterfly plant for fall is the native frost plant but be aware in some areas it reseed galore, like around kerville. Also the two hardy ageratums are great for fall butterflies. Can’t leave out Lantana or tall standard pentas either for excellent nectar sources!

Zizotes has a tuber so it will pop up a few times a year. Giant mw is a perennial... grows into a tree. Mine is 4 yrs old and it gets to be 12ft tall and 5ft wide. I do trim it back as needed. Curassavica can live here for 2-3 yrs and then die back but are heavy seeders. They dont take over the yard because they need moisture... whereas giant doesnt set seed and doesn’t required any additional water.
and yes!! I have some frost weed growing as well

 

[jolenesdad]

I don't have brahma so far. They are on my list. I do have a couple of langshans. They do fine in the summer.
The cochins are just so heavily feathered. They look beautiful but I'm worried they might stroke out in our hot, humid summers. I don't want to get them if they are going to suffer.I'm just hoping someone else has had good luck with them. I probably should stick with orpingtons. Feathered feet suck this time of year (rainy season). Our land has a lot of springs, so when it rains we have puddles in the chicken yard.

Pretty sure if you have English Orpingtons you should be fine. Do you have a setup with shade? Anyway to include fans?

I have heard of people losing lots of heavier breeds in heat in our area. But I also see plenty of people that don’t lose those same breeds. I’ve got lots of shade and use fans in the summer in those shaded areas.

my good friend has six or seven Cochins and they do just fine here. I hear more about English Orps suffering from the heat than Brahma or Cochins.

 

[Aggiedusty]

Good Golly, I’m being lazy lying under the covers all warm with my Australian Shephard near 11 yr old beside me and visiting on this Saturday morning. I smell coffee brewing and time for breakfast for all. Eggs for me of course! Also must check my humidity on the incubator with 8 days left to go on 41 Easter Egger eggs from my flock.. Eggsciting! Can hardly wait for those tiny chirping miracles!

Breakfast of champions! Sorry Tony.

 

[Aggiedusty]

Pretty sure if you have English Orpingtons you should be fine. Do you have a setup with shade? Anyway to include fans?

I have heard of people losing lots of heavier breeds in heat in our area. But I also see plenty of people that don’t lose those same breeds. I’ve got lots of shade and use fans in the summer in those shaded areas.

my good friend has six or seven Cochins and they do just fine here. I hear more about English Orps suffering from the heat than Brahma or Cochins.

Hey, good morning! What’s left of it. When you resting and down for a minute, I would really like to hear about your poultry projects, man. I’m Off to hen houses myself and unload feed from yesterday , then the cows , water wells to turn on now, hay, and feed. You know routine probably.

 

[janiedoe]

Pretty sure if you have English Orpingtons you should be fine. Do you have a setup with shade? Anyway to include fans?

I have heard of people losing lots of heavier breeds in heat in our area. But I also see plenty of people that don’t lose those same breeds. I’ve got lots of shade and use fans in the summer in those shaded areas.

my good friend has six or seven Cochins and they do just fine here. I hear more about English Orps suffering from the heat than Brahma or Cochins.

Thank you for the reply. I do keep fans in their runs all summer. They always have shade, cold water, and frozen fruit. I lost a hen summer of 2018 but she was already sickly with reproductive issues so I'm not sure if it was heat related. I'm a softie and I hate to see an animal suffer.

 

[janiedoe]

Sure bud! I can get you all the pics you want. What is your intended use of your future greenhouse if it’s ok for me to ask? The green house now called GH was for my succulent collection, hoping to get my mother plants at the point that dividing pups off the sides for propagation and plants large enough to remove leaves for rooting, thus produce new pups off the leaves as well. The other use is for rooting roses and collected seeds from nature, and there are some really neat wildflowers up here May to September. Also native yucca and opuntia (prickly pear), pin cushion (horse crippler), hedgehog cacti, and others. Also overwintering perennials not yet planted. I had a concrete curb installed all around my house as edging to the beds in nice large sweeping curves . Largely to keep the buffalo grass and Bermuda grass out. The GH is 15’ x 40’ and has plant benches:tables to hold plants above ground and have space below too for plants and/storage. The first set of the benches run 2’ wide all along GH walls interrupted only by doorway entrances. A center bench is 5’ wide with 2.5’ walkway all around the inside of the greenhouse separating the 5’ center bench from the 2’ perimeter wall benches and yields space to walk all around the interior to water, space, and groom and plant. Two Doors are located at opposite ends centered in the 15’ width walls.. Three screened metal windows for ventilation are spaced evenly and installed along the 40’ length walls both sides. GH has gabled roof. The construction materials mainly consist of 2” square hollow coated metal piping welded making up the frame work and a clear polymer corrugated sheeting screwed onto frame. Installed Both inside and outside creating a dead air space between inner and outer walls for insulation. Even doors are double sided. A fumeless interior propane heater is mounted on.one end. I have a strong fan near to move air. May add second heater at opposite end some day as security measure. GH is installed on a 10” x 12”-14 concrete foundation.. Flooring is 1” to 2” rainbow rock atop black plastic.

A few pictures would be worth a thousand words! I'm not the gardener here...husband is, but I love to see the finished product.

 

[janiedoe]

One of the hatcheries that I was studying recently put an advisory out for their customers in Alabama about Cochins. They had received feedback from several of their customers especially in lower Alabama that their Cochins had not fared very well. No further details just a FYI to those in that area considering purchasing Cochin chicks. I do wish that someone would respond to your plea about Cochins and hot humid parts of Texas. The fact that I have Brahmas up here is most likely useless to you because of how dry and cooler we are in the summer. I actually have started paying attention to statements about cold hardiness and of course egg laying potential. Valley Farms is importing from France and Czechoslovakia so hybrids with incredible laying capacities.

Thank you for the reply. I've decide against adding anything with feathered feet after this last rain. I have a langshan girl who has to have her feet cleaned after every torrential downpour. That seems to be the only kind of rain we get nowadays.
I'm probably just going to keep my little flock going without adding outside chicks for another year. My rooster loves to spread his seed and his hens love to brood. I've given a lot of chicks to friends this past year so I'll trade some eggs locally to get new blood in my flock. It's so much easier to let the hens brood and raise them anyway.[/QUOTE]

 

[Aggiedusty]

Thank you for the reply. I've decide against adding anything with feathered feet after this last rain. I have a langshan girl who has to have her feet cleaned after every torrential downpour. That seems to be the only kind of rain we get nowadays.
I'm probably just going to keep my little flock going without adding outside chicks for another year. My rooster loves to spread his seed and his hens love to brood. I've given a lot of chicks to friends this past year so I'll trade some eggs locally to get new blood in my flock. It's so much easier to let the hens brood and raise them anyway.

[/QUOTE]
I just put a dozen +or- to 3 brooding hens today. EE eggs of my own stock. Have 41 of same EE eggs to hatch in a week from incubator. Gona get real busy soon. My question is this. Has anyone here ordered eggs from a poultry farm and how was the Shipping handling? Reason I ask, two days ago my box of 300 egg cartons came in delivered by UPS. I was setting in den, icing my new knees, and heard a huge thud on front porch. No problem right it’s cartons. But the only thing written on this box was the words EGGS! And he drops it harshly onto concrete and with a small end down obviously not upright the way it should have been. There are some breeds I would like to work with but eggs can be much more affordable if they arrive intact. Help?

 

[Aggiedusty]

I just put a dozen +or- to 3 brooding hens today. EE eggs of my own stock. Have 41 of same EE eggs to hatch in a week from incubator. Gona get real busy soon. My question is this. Has anyone here ordered eggs from a poultry farm and how was the Shipping handling? Reason I ask, two days ago my box of 300 egg cartons came in delivered by UPS. I was setting in den, icing my new knees, and heard a huge thud on front porch. No problem right it’s cartons. But the only thing written on this box was the words EGGS! And he drops it harshly onto concrete and with a small end down obviously not upright the way it should have been. There are some breeds I would like to work with but eggs can be much more affordable if they arrive intact. Help?
[/QUOTE]
I mean 10-12 eggs to each hen depending on her size. The dark Brahma brooding can handle more than a blue Australorp hen. I have six Blue hens and three decide to brood at same time. They are the next in line to get their own coup so their eggs can be hatched as self Blue Australorps.