I love my Nesco. This one. Considered the pricier Excaliber, but at half to one quarter the cost the Neso won and does the job. The racks are dishwasher safe, so dedicated racks shouldn't be an issue.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00179DCCQ/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B00004W4VD&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0WTNR68BCXT99NXQSE1F

Vacuum sealers are trickier. None of them have good reviews across the board. My Foodsaver is all but dead after 4 years (will seal but seldom sucks) and I have been watching for a budget replacement. According to Cook's Illustrated, a nearly $500 model was the winner (Pragotrade Vacuum Sealer Pro 2300), but a $100 basic Foodsaver was a close second. (FoodSaver V2240 Vacuum Sealer Kit).

These results are 3 years old and likely outdated. Thus I have been watching for a smoking deal on any basic Foodsaver. My price point is $60.

Jo

We've had a few different FoodSavers and have loved them all. We still have the original one from years ago and it still works but have newer models, too, and love them all. (My mom buys stuff, then decides to declutter and give things to us, then decides she wants those very things again, and rebuys. I've told the goober to just come get her old stuff but she never listens.)

For dehydrators, I love, love, love my Excalibur. It's very much worth the extra $$. You can fit so much more in there than the round ones, it'll quickly pay for itself in your time alone. The round ones, assuming you get a good one, you usually have to rotate the trays during the drying as some positions will get drier than others. The bad ones, you'll just flat-out hate no matter what you do. So, if you can at all afford it, get the Excalibur. If not, read up on the round ones to make sure you're not getting one of the better ones.

Diane

The Nesco is square, has a top-mounted fan, and fits a buttload of stuff on it. :)

Jo

Cool, Jo. I'd not seen that one. My input was just based on what I've used or played with in friends' kitchens. It has the center column for air flow? And you've not needed to rotate trays at all, fully loaded?

Just asking so I can file the new info away in my brain. Every couple of years, I have a friend or two ask me about dehydrators. It would be nice to have another option for them.

Diane

I have Nesco FD-75PR 700-Watt Food Dehydrator bought from Amazon last fall. Its doing good, dry vegetables and fruits faster, so far no problem. Below is link for details.

-Chandra

Here is a link that might be useful: Nesco FD-75PR 700-Watt Food Dehydrator

Diane, my experience is the same as Chandra's...I also lent it to Dody for several months, so maybe she can chime in at some point. AT the moment I know she's dealing with an injured MIL (broken hip).

I am just thrilled with the square Nesco and so happy that I did not spend more $$$...it satisfies every one of my needs. It does have a central column (I think) top mounted fan etc etc. No need to rotate trays and I have never yet run out of room when drying tomatoes, jerky, herbs,etc.

If I was a huge producer this would not work for me, but then, the Excaliber might not either.

Jo

Jo said her Food Saver "will seal but seldom sucks". I have a Black and Decker and 'it sucks and seldom seals'. LOL I have learned that you must either pack only dry things, or freeze them before sealing in order for these machines to work well. Had I known that before my purchase, I probably would never have bought one.

My dehydrator is old and is not a good one. It was fine in a dry climate, but under humid conditions it takes too long to dry. I need to buy a new one. I am not familiar with the Nesco dehydrator and wish this thread had been posted last week. I am impressed with Nesco products and have two on order right now. I have the big 18 quart Nesco Roaster and just ordered the 5 quart. They had a steamer on sale so I ordered it along with the small roaster oven.

I actually have two 18 quart roasters but they work differently. I have a GE which I bought on an after Christmas markdown at Walmart and have the insert that goes on it that has 3 pans in it. Since GE has the heating element in the bottom it works like a crockpot or works great as a steam table and keeps the three pans warm but is not as good to roast in as the Nesco. The Nesco has the heating element around the sides and works like an oven. I normally only use these for feeding a large group, but I thought I might like the small one to use for everyday cooking. It sounds as if I am wandering of topic but I am telling you this so I can tell my feelings about Nesco.

From the experience that I have had with Nesco, I would be willing to try that dehydrator, I think, although everyone always seems to love their Excaliber. I would say that those two brands are probably your top contenders.

I've been meaning to look into roasters so I'm personally glad you veered a little off topic. I'll have to check out the Nescos.

Thanks, Jo & Chandra, for your input on the newer Nesco dehydrators!

Diane

Ok, so what will vacuum pack freshly killed chicken? Sounds like the dehydrator is all but bought!

Tracy, we vac-pack freshly-butchered chickens every year. You don't want it to be swimming in juices but, if you load the end of the bag into the drip crevice spot, it works fine. Maybe it depends on the particular model? I just know all of ours work fine for it.

Diane

Diane, I'm not understanding what you mean by drip crevice spot? And, should I pack with a bit of brine, dry or some stock? I really don't want to have to pre-freeze before packaging, that would be a major hassle. I'm planning on letting them rest in the fridge for a few days, possibly in some brine.
I think I'll go with a Nesco dehydrator. Boy, I'm going to have fun on Amazon this week!
Friday is d-day for at least 3 of the chickens, I think. I may decide to just do one or two and let the rest wait a week or two, depending on what they way. I think they are week seven so not too old. They're just eating so much, but the weather cooled off so they're more comfortable now.

On our Foodsavers, you fold the edge of the bag over the black, soft part and down into an indentation so that any liquid sucked out goes there. It won't hold a lot of volume but does great for the drips that do come through. Oh, and for juicy things like butchered chicken, we usually go ahead and do a double seal, maybe 1/2" apart, just to be sure.

I'm really struggling to describe this right. I think my brain has already gone to bed without me.

The day we butcher our chickens (and whatever other animals we butcher), we put them in a cooler with lots of ice and lots of salt. It helps to draw out the blood, as well as "relax" the meat. That's the way we were taught anyway. We let them sit in that cooler, refreshing the ice as needed, for a few days. Then we pack & freeze them, nothing added to the bag but the meat itself.

Good luck with your butchering! Our big meat bird batch will be ready at the end of July. I cannot wait to be rid of them.

Diane

I also have an older foodsaver, it does ok on most things.

Some models will have a wet or dry feature. Wet foods can be tricky to get sealed, as the juices are sucked out with the air also.this makes a wet area on the bag and is hard to get a good seal there.

It might be best to pat the chicked dry with paper towels before you try to seal it up.

That is the reason on some items, especially if they contain alot of liquid in them, to do a pre freeze on them. That will solve any problems with too much moisture being pulled out, causing sealing problems.

On dehydrators, i like one that has an adjustable heat setting and a fan is a must.

I have a Food Saver and like it.

In the past I had a dehydrator (it was old and dated back to the 1980s I think), but for the last few years I have had a Bosch stove in the kitchen that includes a convection oven. The convection oven has a 'Dehydrate' mode and I love, love, love it. With careful placements of cookie sheets on the three oven racks, I can dry a huge batch at one time. Sometimes in a great harvest year, I can keep my oven busy dehydrating stuff day and night. Mine allows me to set the temperature at the desired temp within a range of low, dehydrating-type temps. When I am dehydrating tomatoes, the house smells so incredibly good that I can't even describe it.

If I wanted to be a separate dehydrator, I'd buy a Nesco.

Thanks Dawn. I forgot that my new range has a dehydrator setting and also has three big shelves and I have a stack of half sheet pans, so I guess I don't need another dehydrator at all. Duh....

I think I can use my convection oven, too. The only bad thing is, my kitchen is already hot as heck in the summer. There is no direct AC vent in the kitchen, for some dumb reason and no ceiling fan, plus an attached sunroom with a window between the two. I've added an insulated curtain, put aluminum foil on the west facing sunroom sliding door but it's still close to ninety degrees on hot afternoons.
Hmm, might be why my freezer is stuffed with tomatoes and I keep putting off canning? I must have fifty to seventy five pounds of tomatoes in the freezer and I just have to can in the next day or two!
I'm thinking the electric dehydrator can even be used outside, if it puts off much heat at all?

Diane,
Ah Ha! I now know why we are twins! We have the same mother! "I have a bag of stuff for you."

Carol,

I wondered why you didn't mention your oven's dehydrate mode! lol

Tracy, My kitchen faces the west, but we built a sunroom just off the breakfast room that adjoins the kitchen and we planted trees, so at least half the kitchen gets some shading from the trees and/or the solid roof over the sunroom. The sunroom was a screened-in porch we converted, so it has a full roof with no skylights and I'm glad because it would be too hot to use otherwise. I don't understand why they didn't put an AC vent in your kitchen. That just doesn't make any sense...even my little laundry room that sits just off the kitchen has an AC vent, and the laundry room isn't very large at all, so I think cool air from its vent helps cool the kitchen too.

I am piling up stuff in the freezer to can "later", whenever later rolls around. Yesterday we were 100 degrees here by 10:30 a.m., 102 by noon and 108 by the time we rolled out of our fire station to go fight a big wildfire in the afternoon hours. The idea time to can would be at night, I guess, but the fires are keeping me out until after 10 p.m. or even midnight or, one night, until 5 a.m., so I'm not even at home to can during the cool of the evening/night. By the time I come home from a fire, I've been too hot for too many hours to stay up and can. I don't see things getting better for us here unless/until a tropical storm drops tons of moisture here. These grasslands interspersed with the post oak-hickory woods burn like mad once they're dry.

I've never had so little canning done (as in none) by mid-July. I make cookies, muffins, etc. every morning for that day's fires so the firefighters can have some snacks or dessert to go with their fancy dinner of cold cut sandwiches and chips, and after a couple of hours in the kitchen in the morning (which is where I ought to be right now), the last thing I want is to stay in there any longer and can or dehydrate food. This is just one of those years....it own't be a "great" canning year for me because the fires take so much time.

Last year was memorable for the huge fruit harvest (over 300 lbs.) and all the peppers and tomatoes and the accompanying canning and dehydrating. This year is a total opposite.

Dawn

I have no idea why they didn't put an AC vent in my kitchen. It's crazy. It also has a sunroof. I have AC vents in silly places, like closets, but not in my kitchen.
I ordered my dehydrator and food saver last night. A Nesco and the $70 food saver, I think it was a 2244 or something like that.
I'm was going to start butchering next week but now we're going to New Mexico to pick up a trailer so that I can haul manure from where I keep my horses, yeah! I have some seriously nice compost piling up out at the barn. Finally, I can get my last two gardens filled and refill the two gardens that I'm using, since they have compacted over time and are only about three to four inches high. My horses are fifteen miles away and bringing two bushels of manure home in the back of my FJ each day just doesn't get me very far.
So, butchering has been put off until the following week. I guess I could do them before I leave, but then what do I do with the entrails until trash day?
My husband requested that I do a couple at a time so that he doesn't notice them missing. He's so silly. What a sentimental! He's going to have a hard time in the fall when I do twenty five.

Tracy, It sounds like your sun porch is a big dehydrator. I would probably put them on sheet pans, cover with a piece of pre-washed tulle or netting, add a fan blowing across them, and see how long they took to dry.

I'm afraid I would be re-routing one of those closet vents to my kitchen. LOL We had a room that didn't have a vent when we moved here, but the room probably hadn't been essential for the previous owners. I wanted to use it for a sewing room, so we had it changed. It wasn't easy to do and I had to give up some storage space in a built-in cabinet. It is now the coolest room in the house when I open the vent, since it is closest to the air conditioning unit.

We were on a trip and were either in Utah or Colorado and stopped at a stand and bought fruit. I went inside this place and they had racks of fruit with drying trays on them. The trays tilted slightly in the same direction and the shelves were on rollers. The building had south windows but the roof was solid. The building had more of a shed type roof that slanted to the south, but up near the top on the north side there was an opening about three feet wide that ran the full length of the building, and at that point the south part went straight up, as did the ends, like a large retangular upside-down box. The south part was a bank of small windows that appeared to swing out from the bottom. Although they weren't drying fruit when I was there, there was fruit in the trays and I didn't see another building where they were drying. They had lots of dried fruit for sale.

We bought some fruit and continued traveling and snacking. About an hour later I got a terrible headache, and only then did I read the label of ingredients and see 'sulphur'. My DH had a lot of fruit to eat. I can usually handle a little, but that was way too much. Anyway, I think they were drying it all with fans and sunshine, so sounds like you have the perfect place.

Dawn, For over 20 years I have lived in houses with tiny wall ovens and I keep forgetting that I no longer have to deal with that. LOL I don't dehydrate a lot of things anyway. Last year I did a few cherry tomatoes and had them in the freezer in the bunkhouse. I opened the freezer and they came tumbling out and the lid came open and they flew all over the place. I just swept them up and tossed them out and chalked it up to wasted time. On the other hand, I dried some peppers and made pepper flakes from them and Al loved those and put in an order for some more. I was sure I started some of those seed, but I don't have any in the garden. I must have lost the plants early. I know I have lost a few peppers recently because they just got to dry. The areas where I have soaker hoses in place have done OK. I bought a couple more hoses this week but haven't put them down yet. Most years I put down the hoses and almost never need them. Not this year. This year I needed twice as many as I had. My DH would like for me to have everything in place and not move trellis and such from year to year. Maybe I am almost to that point since I have new tomato cages now. This year it seems like I made a lot of mistakes. The largest plant in my garden is creating a tight place to get passed. I was surprised it was such a big plant, but them I remembered that it gets afternoon shade. It is probably less stressed than most of the others.

Yes Dawn, I did forget about my dehydrator function. I think I've been in the sun too long.

It seems I lied in the post above. I was walking through my garden tonight and found one of those pepper plants that I used to make the pepper flakes. It just now has it's first two peppers on it and since they all grow in the top of the plant they were covered by the leaves. George (macmex) gave me the seeds and he calls it Frank's Thai. I think that it is named for his son. It's a hot little bugger.

And oh, my Nesco order came in today. That was quick.

Sunroofs in the closet. Do you mean skylights? What were they thinking?

Could you freeze the entrails in a trash bag in the freezer until trash day?

Our chickens continue dying. If this keeps up, we won't have any left. We've lost one or two in an occasional horrendous heat wave in past years, but not one after another after another. It always happens on a day when we hit a high of 108. They were out today and could free range, including getting under the sprinkler or playing in their pond I made for them. (sigh) I was gone to a fire. Tim found the rooster dead before he left for work and I found the hen when I came home from the fire.

Carol, That's a good idea about dehydrating on the sun porch!

Those racks of fruit sound a lot like harvest racks. Next time you're at the website of Gardener's Supply, look at their wood racks. I'd like to have some of those for onion and potato storage but don't have a place to put them.

You probably have been out in the heat too long. I know I have been! Yesterday I got uncomfortably hot at the fire we were at....it was in an oilfield and a gasline exploded close to Chris (but nowhere near me) so I think it was just too much heat and sun (I was in the shade as much as I could be while still doing my job). It was 107 here yesterday. Today, we were back hitting hot spots at the same fire but it was much hotter. At our house it was 108 but at the home of a firefighter who lives several miles closer to the fire scene, his porch thermometer showed 116 degrees in the shade when he left to come to the fire, and someone else's showed 113. I got sick from the heat....not throwing up or passing out, but very close. Sat down in the middle of the road because that's where the shade was, had a wet towel around my neck and on my head, and was drinking water and Gatorade consistently. My friend, Fran, felt about as bad as I did. Sitting in an air conditioned truck helped, but we cannot sit in the truck the whole time because we have to be outside the truck working. I told Tim we need a new strategy to keep ourselves cool and hydrated so we can keep the firefighters cool and hydrated. One firefighter did require medical treatment after he "went down" on the fireground. He's OK. It is too hot to fight fires, and the ones we're having are big and ugly. We've had as many as 4 in one 24-hour period, and some of the fires have been several hundred acres and have burned for a couple of days. None of us "should" be staying out in the heat as much as we are, but there's no alternative. We are burning up here. I haven't done anything in my garden this week except harvest okra, peppers and purplehull peas. I just wave good-bye to it as I'm leaving to go to another fire. It looks really good considering the weather, but it is weedy.

That was quick! I love it when stuff is delivered quickly.

Diane, when you say lots of salt with the ice, do you mean like a cup or two or several pounds? I'm picturing the gobs of salt we used to use when we used old fashioned ice cream machines. So, if I dump a big, commercial bag of ice in a cooler, about how much salt should I dump in there? A cup or two? Or, a pound or two?
Sorry, just trying to get the picture in my head.
My Food Saver showed up yesterday, less than 24 hours after I ordered it, even though I chose the free, 48 hour shipping! I haven't tried using it yet, and not sure it's really worth using for the zucchini that I'm freezing tonigh, or if I should just use the one quart ziploc bags. Not like the zucchini is going to go bad fro freezer burn, with all that moisture and quick as I'll probably use it to make bread.
Still wondering, though. Can I grate and dry the zucchini and rehydrate it for bread?

Dawn, I'm so sorry about your dying chickens. We just had our new coop delivered thi morning. I was very happy to round up my four week old juvenile delinquents and lock them away. My 7 week old Banties and the broilers are so well behaved. They never cause any damage, besides an occasional pecked melon leaf. Those delinquents found the tomato garden one hour after they were out of their little brooder pen and wer ruining every tomato in reach. Then they were on to the squash, ruining every little kabocha squash. Of course, they didn't touch the abundant zucchini, nooo!
Every time I had to open the garden gate to bring in feed or anything, they were trying to run out to go for an adventure down the road.
And, if you read where a breed like one of the Medittereans is flighty? Well, try having four or five of those breeds raised together. They're totally nutty! Like trying to raise a bunch of wild pheasant, minus the cannibalism, thank god. So, when I ran them down and put them in their coop today, they screamed and screamed, like I was putting them in jail. A nice, clean jail with fresh rice hulls, trays, shade and a fan, tough love, little babies!
I'll get a fence done this week so they can't get into the squash and then they can go back out to graze the walkways, once they know where they are supposed to sleep. At least they're not sleeping in cardboard boxes like the Banties and the broilers, what are they complaint about?
Soonergrandmom- last night, went to use some thai red pepper that I had left on the kitchen counter for a couple of weeks. It crumbled up into dusty flakes. I guess I don't need a dehydrator for my peppers. Just put them on the kitchen counter!

Seedmama, I'm going to see our mom next weekend. I'll tell her you said hi. And to save the bag of stuff for you.

Tracy, we don't measure it, just dump it in by eyeball. We also usually butcher several dozen birds at the same time and fill huge coolers so are adding pounds of salt. Assuming you're doing smaller batches, I'd definitely stick with cups. LOL You're just going for a nice, strong brine. Not just salt & ice but salty, very icy water.

Dawn, sorry about your birds. :-( Do you have more chicks growing to replace them? We've lost two in the past month and we only had six in our adult laying flock since the move. We have plenty more up & comings to take their place but, for now, we're really short in the egg department.

Diane

So far my chickens have survived and I have been covered up with eggs. Yesterday I made 40 deviled egg halves and pumpkin, pecan, and coconut pies, and gave away 4 1/2 dozen eggs so I am now down to a manageable level again. I usually give them away when I have extra but had just failed to do so. Older ones are usually a little easier to peel anyway so work fine for deviled eggs. I took all the food to a friends house where we went to eat today and I left the leftovers.

In late winter my chickens began to peck each other badly and some of their feathers just didn't grow back. Some aren't pecked at all, and others look half naked. It seems that the chickens with tails don't like the tail-less ones very much and seem to pick on them a lot. I rather like those chickens because they are easter-eggers and I like the blue-green eggs.

Anyway, I have a dozen hens and they have survived, but some are rather nude, so maybe that has helped. LOL Most days I am getting 8 or 9 eggs.

I lost one hen in the early Spring. I have read that I shouldn't give them potato peels, but I had some in the compost bucket with some other things and decided to dump it in for the chickens instead of in the compost. The next day I had a dead hen. Lesson learned.

This is the first time I have had chickens in many years and I don't know that I will always have them. I wanted to have a chicken house in place and the experience of taking care of them. I now feel confident in raising them, but they are a bit confining and make it a little hard to stay away from home when we would like to. The dog can go with us, but the chickens need care. I will keep these for now but it may not be a continuing thing. Now that chicken feed has almost doubled in price it is nonsense to feed so many and then give away the eggs. I have had people ask about buying eggs, but I don't plan to get into that, so I just give them away to friends and one neighbor. It has been a good experience and I have learned a lot. I think six hens would be the right number for us to have. You can easily keep a small flock of hens in your backyard. I don't keep a rooster but there is one in my neighborhood which I can hear when I am outside. That lady got her chickens after I did, and I think she may have a couple of turkeys also.

I only wanted five chicks to start out, but my husband thought that wasn't enough after I had bought those. As my Alaska friend would say, "He got an one-time good Alaska deal", he couldn't resist. Now that we are in Oklahoma, he still seems to find the good deals. LOL Anyway, we started out with too many, lost a few, and also got a few roosters in the bunch which we didn't keep. In addition, I had a few Sultan chicks that I bought because they were cute, and they were so nervous and flighty that I got rid of all of them.

My chickens didn't stop laying all winter as I had thought they would, so that also reduces the number I once thought I needed. I have no desire to raise meat birds.

Well, I think today will be the day for a couple of meat birds to be butchered. Soonergrandmom- I'm glad you like your easters Eggers, I have some for the first time that are in my four week old group and I'm hoping I like them. Also hoping that they have a calming influence on the rest of that crazy bunch. I bought all Medittereans- silver leghorns, Egyptian fayoumis, sicialian buttercups and golden penciled hamburgs. I guess technically, the fayoumis are north African, but they're the nuttiest ones of the bunch. My seven week old Old English Game Banties are so sweet and tame. The rooster started crowing at five weeks and sounds like he has laryngitis. He just cracks me up, it's so pathetic. I have an Egyptian Rooster that slipped through in the four week old all pullet group and I hope he's not too loud. That breed is very, very rare and I'd like to be able to hatch a few eggs from them. They have some special traits, extremely hardy and heat tolerant, very early maturing. I chose everything to be heat tolerant, of course.
I sure miss the peafowl I had in OK and Co. They are so beautiful and smart. They eat rattlesnakes and rats!
Do you know they have some automated feeders for chickens that would allow you to get out of town? I'm also going to hook up an automatic waterer, now that I have my coop.
You may want to switch feeds, if your chickens are not growing their feathers back. Or, just add some hardboiled eggs to their diet. That can be a sign of an amino acid deficiency.

Diane,

We are down to 5 hens and 2 fairly worthless roosters. Actually, I like the Rhode Island Red rooster, but the banty featherfooted guy is a PITA. One Ameracauna is setting on eggs so hopefully they'll hatch. Usually in July we have trouble with snakes getting in the coop and getting the eggs, so we'll see.

We'll probably wait until next spring to start with a new batch of chicks if we don't get a good hatch. We've been 100 degrees or over every single day since June 30th (and had plenty before then, but not consecutively), and our local TV met tells us there is no end in sight. None. Nada. Zilch. I feel like we are going to have an epic fire season and no one will be home for days or weeks on end this fall and winter to keep an eye on young chicks, if they even hatch. We are already having tremendous predator issues since we live in a virtual wildlife refuge (not an official one, but you know what I mean), so I am really working hard just to keep our existing pets alive and safe from predation.

We still have a few dozen eggs in the fridge, and if worse comes to worse, I can buy eggs. I am so tired of the heat, and so exhausted from our sudden erruption of insane wildfires all of last week and half the week before (and the lack of sleep during that time) that the last thing on my mind is replacing the chickens. I miss my girls that died though, and even the rooster. He was mean but he was a very pretty boy. The cutoff here seems to be 107-108---if we only go to 106, they're OK. I've added a soaker hose for them and run it on hot afternoons and they can lie down right in the mud if they choose. They also have pans of water and a wading pool to climb into.

Tracy, I've been gone to fires a lot and haven't even had time to pick peppers. Today, while harvesting early in the day and trying to get "caught up", I found plenty that were dehydrating right there on the plant. It won't take but a couple of hours to finish them off in the dehydrator.

Carol, I love the blue-green eggs, and the brown ones, and the brown ones with darker speckles. I love them all! It kills me to crack open a dull white egg from the grocery store when I know there's so many prettier options. We keep extra eggs in the extra fridge in the garage and they stay fresh a long time. Sometimes we give them away, but now that we're down to a handfull of hens, we won't be giving them away I suppose.

We had turkeys for a couple of years, but the heat really stresses them. I can't imagine how they'd be coping with this year's high temps.

Tracy, One of our neighbors (thankfully he lived a couple of miles up the road, and he was a great guy) had peafowl when we moved here. I loved watching them walk around the neighborhood, but the folks who lived closer to his place than we do were not happy about how loud the peafowl were. His end of the road is more settled than our end...it is like a real neighborhood at that end, and our end has much more widely spaced homes on acreage. At our end of the road, I doubt peafowl would bother anyone, but I still don't think I want to listen to them all the time.

Dawn

Tracy, I don't think it is a food issue since they have had several changes in pellets, most of which they didn't like, and corn, millet, all the wheat they ate as they pulled the straw from their nest boxes numerous times along with tons of greens from the garden. Lots of purslan, grass, broccoli leaves and most of the chard I planted since we didn't like it much.

If they have a deficiency in something it certainly isn't causing a laying problem since I got 10 eggs today from 12 hens.

I have read that if you don't have a rooster than a hen will assume the roll. I thought that meant in protecting the flock but obviously it means more than that since my big black hen seems to think she is a rooster in ALL ways. At least she doesn't crow. I think the feather issue is a continuing problem, but other than looking ugly it doesn't seem to bother them.

Dawn, sorry you are having so much trouble with your working girls. I think I would also wait until spring because I sure wouldn't want to take chicks through this heat.

Tell me before you get chicks and I'll tell you about this little brooder we built for the baby quail. It was simple and worked perfectly. It would require only one modification for chickens.

Soonergrandmom- I would love to know about your beepers! All these years, I've never had a real brooder. My brooders have been cardboard boxes and dog crates. Then, they go slits de to aexercise pen with a sheet over the top, heat lamp or fan, as appropriate.
I really miss my cheap little styrofoam incubator with the automatic egg turner from before my divorce. Hubby. Promises that he'll make me one soon and I'll buy the turner to go in it.
Peafowl and gunieas, you either love them or hate them. I did have one wandering peacock who would go 1/2 mile to the neighbors down the road fairly often. I'd get a call and have to bring him home. I must have looked very funny walking down the road herding a peacock with a stick!

Tracy, I am trying to find the link but can't locate it. I think it was a chapter from a very old book, when everyone had chickens. I just followed the instructions and built one like it said but modified the height of the opening a little by shortening the leg length.

If you want measurements, I will have to get those tomorrow, but roughly 2x3 feet and maybe a foot and a half tall. The article called it a chicken hover as I recall. You could use it in any small pen. We just used it in a cage which had a wire bottom, but we put a piece of thin plywood on the wire so air didn't come up through into the area we had the hover. The plywood we laid in the cage was five or six inches larger than the box on all sides, which looked like it had a wrap-around porch. The hover is basicly a plywood box turned upside down. I used 1x2 in the corners and left them longer than the plywood sides. This created legs (on the open side of the box) for the birds to come and go as they pleased.

We bought two of the cheapest kind of light sockets for a couple of bucks and mounted them on the ends of the box a few inches from the solid top as not to be a fire hazard. We wired in one light, then ran the cord across the top of the box on the outside and over to the other end. I don't even think we bought new wiring and a plug to run from the box, but instead used one from a lamp or something we were discarding.

The lights created an amazing amount of heat in that box but since the sides were open all around they could move in or out as they wanted to. Some would be just under the edge so part of their body was under, but not all which is why we used a bigger piece under the cage. Almost all of the time, one bulb was plenty and we just unscrewed the other one. If we had a lot of wind, then we just placed a board on the side with the wind and left the other three sides open. They quickly learned to move in and out based on how much heat they wanted.

Since I had scraps of plywood and 1x2 (or maybe 2x2) and screws, the only thing I had to buy were the cheap light sockets and Al wired it. I bought the plain ones, but you could use the one with a pull chain and not have to unscrew the bulb.

The most critical measurements were the height of the legs so the chicks could walk under, and the height of the box so the bulb wasn't too close to the top but high enough that a chick couldn't touch it. You want the bulbs mounted on the end pieces, not the top. I made mine with legs shorter for the tiny quail, but I could use the same box for chickens, by lengthing the legs.

I was going to make a drop down side or curtain to block wind, but my DH thought I was complicating it to much. Actually a piece of 1x4 on it's edge worked just fine. I just left it in the cage and moved it back and forth as needed.

I know it probably sounds really redneck but it didn't look bad at all. A little paint would have made it look even better. I am probably a little off on the measurements but it had to be narrow enough that we could move it through the cage door.

We didn't lose birds after we built it even when the weather didn't cooperate. It was one of those simple things that worked great.

Since you are starting yours in the summer in Arizona your problem is probably too much heat instead of not enough. Spring and Fall are so unpredictable here but with the hover they could go inside when they wanted heat and go out into the wire bottom cage when they didn't. The quail would just stretch out flat under the heat and look like they were dead. Then they would jump up and move around, eat and drink, and go back under the light.

Carol, that is too cool! I'm having one of those forehead-smacking, why-didn't-I-think-of-that moments here.

Some of the kids and I are cleaning out the chicken house today. I'm cussing those meat birds so horribly, it's shocking, I tell you. Those things are so nasty. Never, ever again will we buy those. Never. Of course, it doesn't help that hubby never got their pen built so they've had to live in the big chicken house (partitioned off) for the last five weeks. Last night, I'd had enough and we moved them into the now-empty brooder pens. They're pretty crowded but it made a point and hubby promised to get their pen done tonight. Don't feel sorry for him -- it's a very quick job and should have been done a long, long time ago. LOL

Anyway, these meat birds (Cornish crosses) are five weeks old and, for those that don't know, you're supposed to start butchering them around six weeks. They are nowhere near butchering size. They're hardly bigger than the layer chicks of the same age.

I'm mad at the chicken world today. Grrrr.

Diane

Diane- why on earth aren't your jumbo crosses getting bigger? Mine are now eight weeks old, Pullets and I bet they weigh close to ten pounds! They are absolute monsters! What are you feeding yours? Are you sure they sent you the right thing? I wonder if the sent you pure Cornish, which take about five months, instead of crosses?
Carol, the brooder sounds great. I'll have to consider making one. I've done similar with cardboard boxes when I've set chicks out in cooler weather. I've also used a stall, when I was in OK and given them a cardboard chill ring, which helps hold the warm air down into the area of the heat lamp.
I'm hoping to do some more jumbo crosses this fall when it gets cool. I haven't found them too nasty but I've left them loose in the garden. I put lots of rice hulls where they hang out and it stays dry.

We're feeding them grower feed, just as we have done in years previous. They definitely have the Cornish cross body, just smaller. They're ugly & stupid beyond belief, just like C. crosses. I don't know what's up with them. We'll give them until they're eight weeks and see if they get a growth spurt. We've (successfully) raised them a few times before so it's not like we don't know what we're doing. I'll email McMurray at the eight-week age if they're not up to a decent size.

Diane

Wow Diane, that is strange. Don't they usually get too fat and their heart isn't strong enough to carry their body weight unless they are butchered at an early age.

I'm glad you could understand what I was trying to describe since I didn't have a picture.

I would complain to the hatchery. I bet you got Cornish and not Cornish crosses.
I got a bunch of jumbo crosses instead of five different light,mediterranean breeds, which is how I ended up with broilers this summer, believe it or not!