The Aloha Chicken Project

[aviddamy]

I have a sprinkler that is on top of the coop. It really helps cool things down. Im gonna grab some melons from roadside stands and put frozen ice bottles in their water. So far, they've done okay.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

alohachickens, Yay! Good news! The BEH egg hatched! Of course, I have no idea who is who but the final count is 10 chicks, with one naked neck. One chick has spraddle leg but we've bandaged him and we are rotating babysitters all day to make sure it gets enough food and water. Here are the pics...

There is the NN on the far right, totally sacked out. He's one of the smallest to hatch and is a greyish chick.


Front and center is the largest chick of the bunch. It dwarfs them all! Pretty little thing even though it is greyish.


The second and third largest are the chocolatey brown and the buff to the left and right of center. NN sacked out again but it is a long legged chick and really very vigorous. Who knows, maybe the NN will grow on me. draye, had to think of you when I saw this little one!

 

[draye]

alohachickens, Yay! Good news! The BEH egg hatched! Of course, I have no idea who is who but the final count is 10 chicks, with one naked neck. One chick has spraddle leg but we've bandaged him and we are rotating babysitters all day to make sure it gets enough food and water. Here are the pics... There is the NN on the far right, totally sacked out. He's one of the smallest to hatch and is a greyish chick. Front and center is the largest chick of the bunch. It dwarfs them all! Pretty little thing even though it is greyish. The second and third largest are the chocolatey brown and the buff to the left and right of center. NN sacked out again but it is a long legged chick and really very vigorous. Who knows, maybe the NN will grow on me. draye, had to think of you when I saw this little one!

Ain't he a cutie? It'll grow on you the longer you have it.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

draye, He is a funny bird to watch and I'm afraid he's already growing on me. Looks like an old bald man with a top hat, but he's entertaining apart from his looks. He stands up, stretches, looks around and zoom! He's across the brooder in no time and then looks around for applause.

Sorry for the blurry pics, cell phone.

 

[wornoutmomto3]

I lost my hen and I don't know why. I went to let the chickens out for the day and the hen was on the floor of the coop dead, no idea why. It was a tragic discovery as we had already gotten attached to her, and even named her Flower.
I still have the rooster, I just don't know if he is a good starter rooster for this. You mentioned that he was a bit dark. What breed of hen could I cross him with to get the right coloring. The only light color "hens" I have are still juveniles. The breeds are: red sex-link, easter egger, white leghorn, buff polish, and buff orpington. The rest are either bantams, have darker feathers(ie, RIR and Black Australorp), or are feather-footed. If feather footed is okay I have a couple that might make good babies(They are backyard mixes). I also have barred-rocks, but I don't think you are going for the barred look.

 

[HEChicken]

Sorry I've been MIA for awhile - it is a busy time around the homestead. We had a calf born so added another cow to the milking schedule and I've also had to spend a ton of time in the garden so......I've been working outside much more than inside in the last few weeks.

Okay so....its hard not to get a little discouraged with my end of this project. After a very wet May, it finally dried out enough that I felt I could segregate a group of Exchequers with a NH rooster. I started with just three hens in the pen for a week and didn't save their eggs for hatching since there was no way to know who had fertilized them. After a week I added the NH rooster. I waited a few MORE days and then started collecting. Around this time we went from a super cool, wet May, to a super hot, dry June. The days were sweltering in those little pens and I felt bad for them. What I don't know is whether the heat affected laying or just the confinement since they are used to such freedom. The first few days in the pen (before I could start collecting), I got 2-3 eggs from the 3 hens each day. But as soon as I added the NH rooster to the mix, the eggs dwindled. By that time I was getting a single egg every other day. No kidding. I had planned to keep them confined as long as it took to fill an incubator but.....with the heat and the slow rate of laying that didn't seem feasible after all so after a week - when I had 3 eggs collected, I let them out of the pen.

In an adjacent pen I had another quad of birds for another project and from that pen I collected only 4 eggs in the same period of time. Sigh. The free-range birds never missed a beat with the increasing temperatures so I can only think it was the forced confinement that led to the decrease in laying. Which leaves me between a rock and a hard place because the only time I can guarantee who fertilized is by confining but they don't seem to bear confinement well and don't lay under those circumstances.

The good news? All three of the Exchequer eggs are developing. I candled yesterday on day 4 and could clearly see spider veins in all of them. The other 4 eggs are darker and it was harder to see at that early stage. I have about 10 broody hens right now so I guess I need to find some more eggs to throw in there so I'll have chicks to give them to raise.

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Egg laying here has come to a stop, except for the ducks. I think it is due to the heat and humidity, coupled with moving them to their summer quarters. I would have to agree that confining birds in this heat/humidity is a bad plan. I'm sorry for the disappointment, but you have to do what you have to do. None of my big birds are taking the heat well, they are all panting and very uncomfortable. We are supposed to have a minor cool down on Saturday (perfect for our family reunion) and I can't wait.

Next week we need to get together. I am doing well physically and will be ready to enjoy a much deserved break from all this prep for the family. PM'ing you!

 

[alohachickens]

alohachickens, Yay! Good news! The BEH egg hatched! Of course, I have no idea who is who but the final count is 10 chicks, with one naked neck. One chick has spraddle leg but we've bandaged him and we are rotating babysitters all day to make sure it gets enough food and water. Here are the pics...

There is the NN on the far right, totally sacked out. He's one of the smallest to hatch and is a greyish chick.


Front and center is the largest chick of the bunch. It dwarfs them all! Pretty little thing even though it is greyish.


The second and third largest are the chocolatey brown and the buff to the left and right of center. NN sacked out again but it is a long legged chick and really very vigorous. Who knows, maybe the NN will grow on me. draye, had to think of you when I saw this little one!

That's a nice group of chicks! Not too shabby, for shipped eggs, yay! I sure needed some good news, thank you! The grayish one is intersting I wonder if that will turn out to be one carrying the Dun color? It could be, that Dun Light Sussex (Cinnamon Sussex) hen is GINORMOUS! Her chicks have been massive. I would not be surprised if that was the momma.

Been busy here - our heat wave continues - and this weather here moves to the East. Towards Kansas! That means you guys can expect the heat to continue for a while, UGH.

HEChicken, the sudden change in temps, I think that is what killed so many chickens in our area? It's no wonder your hens are confused and don't know what to do. It's not just me, chicken keepers all over Phoenix have been reporting losses. My losses actually been in proportion to my numbers. Most people have lost a couple, but that's folks with 20-50 chickens, and I have 100+ right now. About 20-30 hens, about 10 roos, 25 teens, and 70 peeps. Some have been lucky and have lost none, mostly folks with irrigation and free range. Trust the chickens to take care of themselves! They just need the right environment. Some of the larger lots with grass, trees, and water - those folks have had good luck.

No relief in sight! Most of us are guessing the losses are so high because we were so cool and then suddenly so hot, without the usual acclimation period. Typically we have a month of 100-degree range days, and then creep to 105 and then finally 110. This time we went from 95 to 115 in about one week and they couldn't handle that 20 degree temperature jump in such a short span.

So the boyfriend installed misters on the new coop, which have been working GREAT so far! That is protecting the 70 baby chicks and about 25 teenagers from the afternoon heat. I'm only going to run the misters for a few hours per day, in the hottest part of the day. (Both to keep the coop from getting soaked. and also I don't want them to lose the ability to handle the heat in case the misters malfunctioned.) When the humidity goes up the misters won't be as effective, but right now we are super hot and super dry. Anyway, I ordered some more mister supplies on Ebay and they're on the way! He's going to install a run of misters on the front of the barn and we will give that a try.

Unfortunately, I have to go out of town for a week. My boyfriend will be here, and he has promised to do everything he can to help, but I will still worry while I'm gone! He is setting up auto waterers in the new coop (that's mostly for his benefit, he doesn't want to worry about cleaning and refilling water every day) and he says the goal is that he hopes someday (with the misters and auto waterers) he hopes we could go out of town - even in the heat of summer - and have the chickens survive with the WORST pet sitter ever.

Once we did have a terrible pet sitter! She was a nice gal and did stay in the house, so she was a great HOUSE sitter, but she was afraid of roosters! LOL. We had the auto water system by then, and filled a feeder with 50 pounds of feed. It wasn't very hot then and they were totally fine, but OMG, could not believe she was afraid to go in the coop! Ha ha ha . . .

 

[Deerfield Acres]

Thanks alohachickens! I've wondered if that chick had the dun color influence and I also wondered about the beigey/tan chick sitting in the waterer in the middle pic. That is a large chick as well and has a very unusual color to it. It looks more gray in person. I am really pleased with all the chicks. Thank you so much for shipping that second box of chicks. It would have been a real bummer without those. After this weekend and my family reunion is over, I will have more time to spend with the little things and intend to tame them all down. I am keeping one of my BS/SS cross cockerels to cross over the female Alohas. I'm not planning to sell any of these birds at the moment. I'll only sell any with a gross defect like a croocked back, if any.

That would be my luck to get a pet sitter who was afraid to go in the coop!

I'm sorry to hear about all the heat headed our way. We've been watering like crazy. Without the new watering system DH put in the garden, it would be impossible to keep up with everything else we're doing.

I have all my cross females out on grass and they are loving it. They are about 7 weeks I guess by this time. Anyway, during the night their pen is flat on the ground and during the day we set the pen up on bricks just high enough for them to come and go but low enough none of the mature birds can get under and bother them or their feed. Thanks, Heather, for that idea I took from your creep feeder! It is working so beautifully.

 

[alohachickens]

Got back from my one week trip, and the boyfriend did an amazing job taking care of everyone!

I still did have a few losses - but they were kind of expected. Right after the heat wave started, a few days after I lost the first round of hens, everyone started SNIFFLING again! This happened last year, too. Right at the same time, when the heat started. It's like the heat stresses them out, knocks down their immune systems, and allows the "sniffles" thing that has been floating around my flock to re-appear. It hit some of the chicks pretty hard, the free range babies, and a few of those were lost. There was more adult hen that was lost, I'm not really sure who, my boyfriend of course didn't know, but it wasn't one of the three young "teenage" girls that I'm so excited about trying to hatch eggs from, so that's a relief. She could have been killed from the heat, it was still 110 range for a few days after I left. So it's hard to say? This is just a difficult time of year for poultry in Phoenix.

The tough part about them getting sniffles this time of year, is even though a dose of Tylan in the water knocks that stuff right down again, I can't afford to fill EVERY water bowl with antibiotic water. In normal temps, I remove all other water sources and just have medicated water in one place. When it gets hot, I put out wading dishes for them to step in and cool their feet with. I would have to take those away in order to medicate properly. I also worry that during summer, when it's 105-110, that they will drink so much water they may overdose on any water based medicine? And there are Tylan shots, but with so many chickens, like 35 adults and a zillion peeps, that's too daunting. So during the summer, I pretty much can't medicate. It turns into survival of the fittest.

We've had a break in the heat for a few days now, so no more losses, and everyone is bouncing back. I'm sure we are not in the clear, there are many more hot days to come in July and August, but I'm so glad the chickens have a few days relief! Every day of more mild temps, there is less sniffling, more perkiness! Many that were sniffling 10 days ago, when I left, are looking so much better and appear totally cleared up. Yay!