California-Southern

[Sylvester017]

EEs were bred for egg laying Easter Egger... or Americana some hatcherys call them... I have friends here in San Diego County that have Ameraucanas the kind with the muffs under their chin... in low humidity all they need is shade and access to water.
Hi Perchie - yes, too many people are casually calling their EEs "Ameraucana" or "Americana" or "Aracauna" and it gripes me because I paid good money for our APA Blue Wheaten Ameraucana from a private breeder! She was NOT a $7 feed store chick!!! In sharing with other APA Ameraucana owners we found our Ameraucanas seemed more sensitive to heatwaves but fluorished in colder weather where other breeds didn't do as well in the cold.

For what its worth even a pure bred Ameraucana can be called an EE simply because they dont follow the SOP for color.
This is exactly why we paid good money for an APA standard Ameraucana from a certified breeder and have a 2nd Amer on order in a different color standard for this Spring. We didn't want green or pink or tinted or white eggs from EEs but the definite blue of the true APA standard. Someday I may try an EE for fun since my friend loved all her 3 EEs and 1 Amer. Many breeders describe their APA Ameraucana eggs as greenish-blue and not really blue-blue but in comparing our Ameraucana egg color with EE eggs there is definitely a blue to the Amer eggs and the EE eggs have the more greenish-blue. Once in a while an EE will lay a pretty blue without the sage tint but then their wacky feather color gives away the fact that they were never an APA bird.

WE even ran a few days of single digit humidity here.... scary stuff because the flashpoint of the brush is extreme. here on the coast we still have mostly low teens in humidity. At my house Its always about five percent lower than here.
As a kid I lived 10 miles east of Oceanside in SD County in the 1940's. Vista weather was always miserable - coastal cold fog mornings rolling in most of the year with insufferable hot allergy-filled summers. We lived in rural rolling hills that captured the settling fog sometimes until noon while the passes between the hills held onto the summer heat. It wasn't city when we lived there with only one signal in the main town so the area was a gorgeous rural scene where we lived. The only miserable part of it was the climate.

Panting is the only way chickens can cool off that and putting their feet in some coolness. Its normal.... They will also spread their wings out to sluff off some of the heat they will contain. Feathers are pretty good insulation both for heat and for cold. Just keep an eye out for heat stress. Too much panting lethargic.... Feeding green leafy veggies will boost their electrolyte level... Good feed Ice cold watermellon slices are the bomb....
Panting is definitely a way that chickens (and dogs) cool off but there is a point when you know your chickens well enough to know they have reached a distress point. After spending good money on our breeds and since they are more pets than utility we are sensitive to their health issues. I won't go into the details but rest assured we over-protect our hens and go overboard in all their heatwave care beyond the suggestions you listed. For medical care or emergencies our vet is luckily only 10 minutes away! (P.S. Watermelon isn't a favourite with our girls. They will choose and go nuts for cantaloupe over watermelon any day of the week - LOL! I'm kinda glad cause it's easier to clean up sweeter-smelling cantaloupe outdoors rather than watermelon that sours quickly and smells in the heat.)

As always ty for your input. It's reading posts like this I hope will benefit readers - Smiles

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
Oceanside is a different microclimate than San diego.

Sadly the drougth has cut down big time on the fogs.... we used to get fog up here in Santee that would last as long as ten in the morning.

We moved here in 1967 I had never seen fog before. Because we always lived in the desert. This was the wettest environment I had experienced. That first year here we got snow even it was amazing because school let us all out to see it snow.

As the years went by I watched this place dry up.... WE had a few years where there was a good 20 inches of rain... But by the time the seventies came to an end we could see the pattern of wet and dry seasons changing... Longer dry shorter wet...

If it keeps it up I will loose my well... and I will be forced to do something about it... Either drill another or sell. Since I cant afford to drill...

Without water you cant raise any livestock....

deb

 

[Phage]

Naked necks are meant to be great birds for regions that can get hot. As well as less neck coverage, they have much fewer feathers overall.

Also I have never heard of anyone who has had them not like them. They are meant to be sweet birds that lay a ton of large eggs. Of course that can vary with underlying breed,

I am not sure if debating whether an ameraucana or an EE is better suited for heat is useful, as they share 99%+ of their genes, and at that point the difference in heat tolerance is more likely to be at the individual animal level.

 

[perchie.girl]

Naked necks are meant to be great birds for regions that can get hot. As well as less neck coverage, they have much fewer feathers overall.

Also I have never heard of anyone who has had them not like them. They are meant to be sweet birds that lay a ton of large eggs. Of course that can vary with underlying breed,

I am not sure if debating whether an ameraucana or an EE is better suited for heat is useful, as they share 99%+ of their genes, and at that point the difference in heat tolerance is more likely to be at the individual animal level.

Yep and yep.... Thanks Phage...

 

[SurfCityBumpkin]

hi, hope everyone had a nice weekend. Sorry to jump in off topic but I am looking to rehome my 17 week old Coronation Sussex cockerel and thought I might try here. He is a nicely tempered boy but Huntington Beach doesn't allow roosters so, alas, he has to go.

Here are a few pictures

 

[MrsMatt]

Hi Everyone,

I'm looking for 3-4 Bantam Cochin pullets. Will anyone at the meetup have any for sale? Preferably feathered so they can go right in the coop.
Thanks in advance.

 

[perchie.girl]

hi, hope everyone had a nice weekend. Sorry to jump in off topic but I am looking to rehome my 17 week old Coronation Sussex cockerel and thought I might try here. He is a nicely tempered boy but Huntington Beach doesn't allow roosters so, alas, he has to go.

Here are a few pictures

Nice solid looking roo. Alas I don't have a coop right now.

 

[Sylvester017]

Oceanside is a different microclimate than San diego.
ALL climates have changed around the globe since the '40s. I guess it's supposed to be normal to have climate shifts but you know over-population and urban expansion has a lot of the blame.

Sadly the drougth has cut down big time on the fogs.... we used to get fog up here in Santee that would last as long as ten in the morning.
I hated the cold wet rolling fogs as a kid 'cause I got soaked walking the 1/4 mile to the bus stop for the 45-minute ride to school.

We moved here in 1967 I had never seen fog before. Because we always lived in the desert. This was the wettest environment I had experienced. That first year here we got snow even it was amazing because school let us all out to see it snow.
Surprisingly here in the San Gabriel Valley next to the mountains we get a thin sprinkling of snow maybe once every 10 years! But mostly it's been drought for nearly 4 years.

As the years went by I watched this place dry up.... WE had a few years where there was a good 20 inches of rain... But by the time the seventies came to an end we could see the pattern of wet and dry seasons changing... Longer dry shorter wet...
We're dry most of the time, humid during the hot summer/fall, and then once in a great while don't get rain but what I call "gully washers" because the clouds get trapped against our SGV mountains and downpours onto us foothill residents while other flatter valley residents are just getting normal sprinkles.

If it keeps it up I will loose my well... and I will be forced to do something about it... Either drill another or sell. Since I cant afford to drill...Without water you cant raise any livestock....
Oh I'm sorry about your well water situation. This is one of the reasons we didn't retire to our Northern CA vacation property. I don't trust relying on wells and like you said the drilling is pricey (What isn't these days?) so the property just continues sitting vacant - sigh! 20 yrs ago there was plenty of underground water for wells and a lot of expansion but with the economy bust the area is now almost dead and barely useable as camping/vacation area. The back of our property is national preserve and lowland ranchers drive their cattle to the upper range in summer and you might find a couple cows grazing through your property if it's not fenced off. Someday the area will revive but not in time for me to enjoy it.

 

[Sylvester017]

hi, hope everyone had a nice weekend. Sorry to jump in off topic but I am looking to rehome my 17 week old Coronation Sussex cockerel and thought I might try here. He is a nicely tempered boy but Huntington Beach doesn't allow roosters so, alas, he has to go.

Here are a few pictures

Offer a Coronation hen or two to go with your roo as a trio and you might have better luck. Areas like Chino, Tehachapi, Norco, Riverside, the Inland Empire and Desert communities have a lot of farms that will take in chickens. Is there a BYC thread on Sussex chickens where you can offer to split the cost of shipping to someone who could use him in a breeding project? Coronation are just so rare.

I was offered a pair of Coronation but only if I continued the breeding project but like you we can't have roos either!

Coronations are incredible birds. Big gentle giants that I wouldn't suggest mixing with other LF breeds that have combative temperaments. Hope you find a good home where this rare guy won't be someone's dinner. Don't panic to give him away too quickly. Cities will usually give you a decent amount of time to re-home a bird to a good home. Meanwhile you can try a No-Crow Rooster Collar to diminish the volume of his crow until he gets a new home.

 

[calichicken]

Hi All!
I am looking for bantam cochin eggs to hatch in the beginning of April

Please let me know if you have any to sell or know of any good resources. I really want to try and get eggs locally(or from Calif) rather than shipped from a long distance!
Thanks!