Keeping Chickens Cool

I have been getting a lot of traffic lately to this post from last summer about how I keep my chickens cool so I thought I'd put up a quick little refresher for everyone. I am not a chicken expert by any means but have come across so many great tips and tricks from other chicken owners that we have incorporated for our girls. Because it is always in the triple digits here during the summer and early fall months, we strive to keep our girls as comfortable as possible.

 

Our chicken essentials for summer:

• Plenty of shade. It is important that chickens have lots of shady spots to enjoy during the heat of summer and our coop and chicken yard is shaded throughout the day.
• Plenty of fresh water. Our girls have three different water sources available to them. I don't know if it's true but I have been told that chickens don't like to walk through direct sunlight on a super hot day to access water so we've got water placed in all of their favorite hangouts.
• Ventilation. Our coop has plenty of ventilation to help keep air moving. We also ran electrical to our coop last summer and installed a fan in the ceiling that is now on 24/7.
• We have 4 large terracotta plant saucers in their "chicken yard" and fill them with fresh water each morning and afternoon. The girls love to stand in them and wet their feet. We also like to freeze milk cartons and large plastic bottles with water and place them in the saucers to keep them cool.
• No scratch. I don't give the chickens any scratch treats in the summer no matter how hard they beg for it. Their bodies have to work too hard to break scratch down which causes them to heat up.
• The best investment we have made in keeping our girls comfortable is a $10 dollar portable mister from the local hardware store. It attaches to our hose and we keep it on during the hottest parts of the day in their chicken yard. The girls love it and spend the majority of the afternoon hanging out underneath the mist.
• Occasionally we'll make the girls veggie popsicles. We'll chop up leftover veggies from the garden and place them in a tupperware container filled with water. Freeze and then let them enjoy. 

If you have any tried and true tips you'd like to share, please do. We're always looking for new ideas to keep the chickens happy and comfortable.

Full Bloom

Spring is by far my favorite season here in Arizona. The weather is gorgeous and dry, the neighborhood farm animals are having babies, the flowers are in bloom, the hens are laying up a storm, and we spend every waking minute outdoors. I fully realize that this all sounds ridiculously cheese ball but it's true (back me up here fellow desert friends). If you are quietly cursing me now, remember that I will be cursing you in just a couple of months when the crazy desert heat settles in. At least we have the haboobs to look forward to, right?

I don't think I've shared any gardening or chicken pictures in a while so here's the latest and greatest of what we've been doing outside.

We added a second raised bed a couple of months back so we now have room for a small cutting garden. Fresh flowers in the house every day? Yes, please.

(Update: someone asked on Pinterest if the rebar over the bed in these pictures is a sprinkler system. That would rock but it's not. We have a watering system snaking through the actual bed which works very well. The rebar above the garden is to hold the netting in place to keep the birds and chickens out. We also use it to hang our sun shade in the summer and freeze cloth in the winter.)

Even the girls are enjoying the beautiful weather. I think they know that summer is fast approaching so they're taking advantage of this while they can. They are not big fans of the triple digits and really, who can blame them?

Jason and I were looking at the garden this afternoon and he lifted the net for a split second. In the blink of an eye, Francie was up there looking to snag a treat. If you don't watch it with these young pullets, they'll gouge out your eyeball to try and steal your food. They are crazy. We had a picnic under the trees last week and poor Finley lost his quesadilla to Minnie before he knew what hit him.

All of our trees are starting to produce this upcoming season's fruit. The boys are checking out the apple trees (their favorite and mine too) with Old Lady. Her name is Addie but for some reason, Oliver has called her his Old Lady since he started talking. Sadly, we think that Old Lady's days are numbered so we're getting in some good quality time with her.

And kind of related but kind of not...My sister, the AZ Plant Lady, had a film crew over from SheKnows.com today to film several "how to" segments on gardening for their website. She is a gardening genius (especially for the desert) and I know these videos will be incredible. I'll be sure to share when they're available.

Wherever you are, I hope you're outdoors and enjoying spring (at least on this side of the hemisphere).

22 weeks and counting...

Egg Watch 2012 has officially begun. 

Now that I'm a bit more seasoned in raising chickens, I didn't think I'd get so excited for the new girls to start laying. I'm not hanging around and giving them performance anxiety like I did with our original hens, but I'm still out there more than usual. Chickens typically start laying anywhere between four to six months and our older girls all started laying at 22 weeks. It could be several weeks still but I'm thinking my sweet Francie (yes, she is supposed to look like that - she is a naked neck) may start laying soon since she's been spending a lot of time around the nesting boxes. Anytime now chickies...we need more eggs.

2/7/11 Update: It looks like the chickens got the message because I found these in one of the nesting boxes today:

The light green egg on the right is Lucy's and the little brown egg on the left is from one of the new girls. I'm thinking it's from Minnie because her comb and waddles are super red today. I am a proud chicken mama!

Annual Garden Party for the Chickens

It's that time of year again when our beautiful fall/winter garden has gone to seed and we need to start preparing for our spring/summer garden. We usually keep our garden covered with netting to keep the girls out but once a year, we take the net off and let them go to town.

We salvaged what we could of the veggies and gave the girls access to the rest. 

They'll have a few weeks to prepare our soil for us (by pooping and scratching) and then we'll start getting our transplants ready to plant. Because of our climate, we are able to plant our spring garden earlier than most regions.

The older hens were in the garden too but they are a bit camera shy these days.

The best part of the upcoming garden season is that we now have two of these beauties! My mom recently celebrated her 70th birthday and for her gift, my siblings all got together (along with the grand kids) and built my mom another raised bed - pretty much identical to this one. I'm considering myself very lucky that my mom lives with us and loves to spend her time outdoors with her garden. I did not inherit the green thumb that runs in our family so I am happy to reap mom's rewards.

Is anyone else making plans for their spring garden yet?

From Our Flock to Yours

Happy Holidays!

One Little Egg...

I found an egg in the coop today. An egg!! We have six chickens (only three are mature enough to lay) and haven't seen any eggs in a few months. I about flipped when I saw this baby and of course had to run inside and take a picture of it. (Crazy chicken lady, I know). 

The hens all molted at the end of summer and with the shortened day light hours, they just haven't been producing. Hens generally need 12-14 hours of light to produce and lay eggs and they are only getting about 10 or so. We'll be putting a light in their coop this weekend set on a timer to turn on at 4am. Hopefully that will entice the girls to start getting back to business. It's either that or we'll be having some really good chicken dinners soon. Totally kidding.

 Egg Watch 2012 will be starting soon as the newest additions will be getting ready to start laying in just a couple of months. Thank goodness - we need some eggs here, chickens!

This is new to us as our hens were in their egg laying prime last fall and barely decreased in their production. Those of you with chickens, do you notice a huge decrease in egg production during winter/fall? If so, do you let the girls rest or supplement with light? Would love to hear your experiences and how you handle things.

Our New {old} Coop

We've been going back and forth trying to decide whether to build a new coop for the chicks or to put together something smaller and temporary until they are old enough to move in with the big girls. I figure the lumber and time alone would get a little pricey so I scoured Craigslist last weekend and found what we thought was a pretty cool coop at a steal of a price. We could tell by the picture that it was a pretty wonky coop but we loved the character.

Once we got it home and had a closer look, I could tell that we overpaid for this coop. It was literally staple gunned together! A strong gust of wind would have taken this thing down. Lucky for me I have a very handy husband who was able to give it a little TLC.

It's a lot smaller than our existing coop so it fits nicely in the chicken yard. Once we got it to a state where we felt it was livable, we moved the chicks out and they have been in heaven ever since. The coop has three levels, four levels, and all kinds of little ramps up and down for them to run across. It reminds me of a dollhouse (I'm not sure how functional it will be for full grown hens though).

The boys literally spend hours each day sitting next to the coop and watching the chicks.

The older hens didn't notice the new girls at first but once they finally did, they've been keeping a close eye on them. 

We will keep them in their new coop until they are big enough to meet the older girls. At that time, they'll be able to free range during the day and go in to roost at night. Until then, they seem perfectly content in their new, if a little awkward, digs.

Week 3 With the Chicks

The chicks are three weeks old now and are starting to enter the awkward phase. They are quickly losing their fuzz and feathering out. Although they are still a ton of fun, they are getting louder and smellier and I'm anxious to move them outside in a couple of weeks.

Cookie

Minnie

Lottie

And Francie.

And speaking of chickens...Phoenix area locals who raise chickens, are interested in raising chickens, or just like to chat with fun and friendly folks, mark your calendars! This year's Phoenix Tour de Coops is going to be held on December 3rd.

Keep an eye on the Valley Permaculture Alliance website for more information.

Baby Chicks - Day 2

The chicks survived their first day with us and are fitting in nicely. Aside from a little pasting up for Francie (poor thing was traumatized when I cleaned her up), things have been smooth. Since they will start feathering and going through an awkward phase in just a couple of days, Oliver and I had a little photo shoot with them while they are still fluffy and adorable.

So incredibly cute! Aren't they?

Francie is still my favorite. She is the friendliest (so far) and I absolutely love her little neck. Finley likes her too but he's afraid to hold her because of her feathers (or lack thereof). ;)

The chicks have arrived!

I got a call early this morning from the post office that a box had arrived for me that was marked "live animals" and was making noises. Oliver and I high tailed it over to pick our special delivery up. The chicks came all the way to Arizona from Connecticut (1 day express) which seems like a pretty hefty trip for these tiny things. Because of this, I'm always a little apprehensive opening the box in case one or more didn't make it. Fortunately, the box was very loud and I could feel the girls moving around inside.

We carefully opened the box and found our newest little pets all snuggly and sweet inside.

Meet Lottie the buff orpington

And Cookie the black australorp

And Minnie the silver laced wyandotte (Can you tell Finley named this one? Although I'm sure I don't spell it the way he'd want me to)

And my personal favorite...Francie the naked neck. 

Once we got the girls unpacked, we carefully placed them into the brooder which will be their home until they are fully feathered (around 6 or 7 weeks) and ready to move outside.

They immediately dove into their food and water and filled their little bellies until they could hardly stand up. These girls are pooped out! Francie (the naked neck) could hardly hold her head up she was so exhausted.

The girls have a heat lamp in their brooder (which is why the photos have a red tinge) that will keep them at a warm 95 degrees for their first week. They all huddled together and had a nice, well deserved snooze. Again, poor Francie is face down in the pine shavings.

So far, they seem to be adjusting really well. They are well protected under the watchful eye of Sodapop. She won't get her first (supervised) face to face meeting with them until they are older and bigger. She's great friends with the big girls but these little ones might be a bit too tempting.

We are excited to have little chickies around again. I forgot how cute and tiny they are! My next task is to do some more research and come up with a plan of action for introducing them to the existing flock when the time comes. That part makes me really nervous... if anyone has any experience with that, I'd love some tips.

Unofficial Chick Week

We are celebrating chick week at our house. Our newest girls should be hatching sometime today or tomorrow and will arrive all bundled up in the mail on Thursday or Friday. We've spent the past few days getting the brooder and all of the supplies ready for them.

In honor of their upcoming arrival, I'm sharing my latest and greatest pins from my Fowl Friends board on Pinterest.

fresh eggs sign (I'm definitely getting this!) by William Dohman

brown eggs photo via hindolbettern

basket of eggs and wellies via meggielynne

chicken and bunting via dottie angel

Will update with pictures when the newest flock members arrive.

Coop Envy

I have a major case of coop envy. Don't get me wrong. Our current coop is great. It's got plenty of space and is more than adequate to keep the girls happy. However, I've been doing a bit of chicken coop window shopping online and am absolutely blown away at some of the designs out there. If money were no object and I could have the coop of my dreams (I mean my chickens' dreams), I'd probably choose one of these...

I am completely in love with this roof top garden chicken coop by Kippen House. Not only is the design modern and fresh, the coop is completely functional and has several features that I wish we had incorporated into the coop we built.

Next up we have the Nogg chicken coop. Don't be fooled - it looks tiny but can house 2-4 chickens quite comfortably. I love the beautiful (and slightly humorous), clean design of this.

The Breed Retreat by Frederik Roije absolutely blows me away. Seriously? If my chickens lived in a coop like this, they'd have to make room for me because I'd be moving in.

And how cool is this coop designed by Mitchell Snyder and Shelley Martin? I adore everything about it. The modern design, cool colors, and roof top garden.

A chicken can dream, right?