New Mexico

[TwoCrows]

I love your bird houses! You are so lucky to get the variety of songbirds you get. We are in the high plains, and not much scrub or riparian areas for them. We lived out in the boonies near Ft Davis, TX some 27 years ago. We would see the bluebirds there. I will have to look up the Ash throated fly catchers. Growing up we had scissor tails and I loved them. We get nesting pairs of Western Kingbirds and I mark my calendar for our little breeding pair of barn swallows to show back up. They are summer time joy, nesting up in under the patio and running off anything that comes up under here that flies. Sadly, they have had a hard time last couple of years raising a nest of babies. We usually get two nests or even three a summer, and last two years they have managed to get a baby each nest fledged. I don't know what is going on but the babies that dropped out the nest had lice. I don't know what we can do about that. We seem to get the same pair for about three years and then a new one comes in.

Well....I went ahead and ordered six Alchemist Blue females to add to our flock. It was really starting to keep me up at night worrying that a rooster with only two or three hens would mate them to exhaustion and death. We are getting really stoked about this. The Eglu, while seeming like a great easy option is simply ridiculously priced for the larger Pro unit. And we have the empty shell of the greenhouse to work with. We have a lot of work to do.

The cool thing is, when the Blues start laying, and if we want to hatch chicks (which will probably be incubator as they are low broody hens) those chicks will have olive eggs. That would be fun to tinker with, egg color and breeding.


Spent a glorious afternoon in the garden getting ready to plant. Which meant spending a lot of time, enjoying some home grown and contemplating out there what we want to do. Thank you New Mexico for that little joy in life, to grow our own medicine. Something new, after years of growing, we are going to grow a super charged CBD outdoor crop this year.

Staying off the news, only watching gardening and chicken videos on YouTube. Plan on eggs, what we don't sell we will take the LIghthouse that serves meals and Food Bank or for SNAP group. We feel like we have been super selfish people last few years, cocooning and healing. It is beyond high time we give back. If we never sell a dozen eggs but gift them I will be a happy camper but hey, why not try and get a little back to pay for next years garden.

Fun times! In spite of all the chaos going on in the world, I am so happy to have this project to work on.

Skye

Good morning Skye!

I'm not sure what could be done with wild birds and lice. Sounds like the parent birds are infested with them and spreading them to the babies. All you can hope is a healthy pair decide to nest there and claim that site as theirs. Yes being up in the mountains we really have a large variety of bird species. We've had some devastating wild fires these past years, the Northern Sacramentos have been nearly destroyed. So our bird life has greatly diminished, many species are no longer here. The hummingbird population as dropped by huge proportions over the years, not sure if they are avoiding these mountains or their species are suffering as a whole in general. I am already looking forward to seeing my first hummer, they usually arrive around April 1st!

I can only plan for a garden right now, our last frost date is usually around Mother's Day and overnight temps remain in the 40s low 50s until June. I did purchase some seeds the other day along with peat pots and will start them indoors early April. I have several grow lights for my cactus so I'll borrow one to start the seeds.

I stopped watching the news about 8 years ago, life is a lot easier for me if I withdraw from the world and concentrate on my own path. Too much outside influence causes me too much stress.

Best wishes with all your projects, and have a lovely day out there!

 

[wild chick]

Curious if anyone has available chicks in southern New Mexico? I see the major hatcheries are basically out through June or longer. Not too picky about breed, just decent layers, prefer a variety or EE's so I can tell them apart. I have 3 hens, one will be 9 in June, the other two will be 7, so yard art pretty much. Only the EE is still laying.

 

[Henhouse Harlot]

Curious if anyone has available chicks in southern New Mexico?

Well, I have two bantam chicks that just hatched, one is a bantam cochin x bantam EE, and the other is a bantam cochin. The feed stores in Roswell usually have chicks, TSC gets them in on Tuesdays I think!

 

[wild chick]

Thanks for the reply. I should have specified no bantams. Sorry, my bad. Yeah, TSC here gets them but say they never know what day or what they're getting and sells out same day so they don't want to take numbers for calling. So kinda frustrating. I'm 30 minutes from town so can't go in every day to check. I may just order from a hatchery like I've done before.

Thanks again!

 

[Henhouse Harlot]

Thanks for the reply. I should have specified no bantams. Sorry, my bad. Yeah, TSC here gets them but say they never know what day or what they're getting and sells out same day so they don't want to take numbers for calling. So kinda frustrating. I'm 30 minutes from town so can't go in every day to check. I may just order from a hatchery like I've done before.

Thanks again!

I think Roswell Seed Co has a chick ordering system set up, try calling them?

 

[Henhouse Harlot]

I’ll ask a couple folks I know, but I’m afraid most of my friends have decorative chickens as well! (Aka “bantams”)