Good point - so they need heat regularly until they are fully feathered. That makes sense. I wouldn’t want them to get cold! So no outside exercise until then. Well, that will give me plenty of time to get the coop done. 
Exactly! Every year when we go to the TN State Fair, my husband and I love going to see all the rabbits and chickens that are being shown. So many varieties and colors and sizes.
So, is there a good starter chicken? LOL One that is fairly friendly temperament wise, but bomb proof for a beginner?
I found that the chicken trading groups on FB are a good way to find adults or other local birds. I know the TSC here often has sex-linked chicks on offer, so you know you are getting hens or roos.
Instead of a heat lamp, go with a heat plate. They’re mucho safer, and because the heat is so isolated, chicks adapt much quicker to normal temps. I had chicks out in the coop well before they were fully feathered with no supplemental heat after raising them under a plate.
The one from Premier is great, and less expensive than the one from Brinsea.
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Barred Rock
Wyandottes
Buff Orpingtons
there are loads more, most are pretty easy.
I called the Co-Op - these are the breeds they carry in-store on “chick” days. I’ve probably murdered the names of some of these (I did try to look them all up). Sorry in advance for any booboos! I had no idea they carried so many varieties.
Ameraucana
Buckeye
Black Giants
Black Sex Link
Black Australorp
Orpington
Bramas (several colors)
Barred rock
Road Island Reds
Speckled Sussex
New Hampshire
White Rock
White Leghorn
Partridge Rock
Golden Gamut
Laced Wyandotte (several colors)
Cuckoo Maran
Welsummer
Do different breeds of chickens get along together ok as chicks (as long as you aren’t mixing something really aggressive with something more submissive or maybe big size differences)? Like it I got 2 of one breed and two of another would that work?
I wouldn’t have wildly different sizes together for safety reasons. my D’Uccles (a bantam breed) are quite small and intimidated by my Barred Rock hens, they don’t socialize at all when everyone is turned out. They have separate coops. When I had Blue Laced Wyandottes along with a Polish mix and an Australorp mix those girls were all fine together and they were similarly sized.
I do presently have one BR hen who is a bit of a cast out from the flock- chickens have a lot of personality and opinions, and she does not fit in, although they were all raised together from the same stock.
The le, crested cream legbar and isbar. That got me this. (Looks like the color washed out a little with the upload–that’s blue, green and brown eggs. Cool, huh?)
[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/YXEy6cY.jpg)
The black copper marans are especially fun–I get these super dark brown eggs from them.
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OH. Golden Gamut = Golden Comet, I bet. That one had me scratching my head :lol: Production hen, lays a lot of brown eggs.
:lol: ROTFL Well, I’m am phonetically challenged and dyslexic to boot. I was trying to write the names down the way they sounded as she was rattling them off over the phone. So yes, Golden Comet sounds better! I hate asking people to spell seeming easy words that I don’t hear correctly. :o Makes me feel like a dummy.
The Golden Comet is a friendly and nice looking reddish chicken who will reliably provide you with the most eggs from your flock. Nice large brown eggs. Some say they don’t produce or live as long because they’re bred to be heavy producers, but it’s really a pretty pleasant chicken to have around. Here’s what I currently have (one of each):
Golden Comet (see above)
Black Australorp (also a nice, friendly bird, but lays smaller eggs that are very light brown)
Golden Laced Wyandotte (the most flighty of my bunch, but pretty. Lays smaller, lighter eggs much like the B. A.)
Easter Egger (a bold but somewhat odd looking chicken, who is a steady producer of large green eggs)
Cuckoo Marans (I think I got a defective one. Last year she laid for about two weeks, then stopped for the rest of the year. She has started laying again this year, and lays HUGE dark brown eggs. They’re like the size of two regular eggs, and I can’t even close the egg carton. I wonder if she’s going to stop laying early again this year. I had another of these before, and she laid eggs about 4x/week, and frequently went broody).
I will search for a local chicken group on FB. That seems like a good idea.
As far as hens vs roosters, I do worry a bit about noise issues with a rooster. as in, will this really irritate my neighbors or wake me up in the wee hours of the morning? I’m on 40 acres, but am in a “hollow” and sounds really reverberate across the valley. I don’t want to be “that” neighbor! 
As far as goals - I hadn’t really thought in those terms. Eggs are great to have and share - and at least I’ll know they came from a happy chicken. And I always wanted chickens since I spent a summer (at 19) in Switzerland on a large farm with dairy cows, chickens, rabbits, an orchard, a huge garden, etc. - they were the local fresh grocery. Towns people would come by for a pail of milk, a half dozen eggs, a rabbit, a half kilo of cherries, some rhubarb and be on their way. I’d also love a cow - but that’s another thread! :lol:
Until you and @Simkie mentioned it, I was unaware there were green chicken eggs. How interesting! Thanks for the info about your hens.
My Orpingtons are both super sweet chickens and they were recommended as a friendly breed.
Ameracauna will be basically Easter Eggers. Different name, pretty much same chicken. Blue or green eggs. Mine are different colors, from light grey and black to dark copper and black. Mine are sweet but not as docile as the Orpingtons.
Also, when I said heat lamp I really mean a lamp with a reptile bulb. They are supposed to be safer than the red bulbs, and they have no light so the chicks can sleep at night. I ordered on Amazon. Some people use heating pads but I can’t imagine they wouldn’t poop all over one and start to smell? Chicks poop a LOT.
My chicks are still young but when I was a kid we had a big flock of 30+. The key to keeping them friendly is regular handling so they trust you. I always like to hand feed them a bit at the start of any meal. They will soon see you as the Pied Chicken Piper.
A rooster will help keep your hens safer if you free range. They crow ALL DAY. If you don’t have one, a hen may surprise you by taking up crowing :lol: Some boys can certainly be evil, but there are also nice ones. If you have a rooster, you’ll need to maintain a large enough flock to ensure he’s not over breeding his hens (usually see ~10 hens per rooster recommended.)
There are four of us in a row in my neighborhood with roosters. I hear mine, barely, through closed windows. He definitely doesn’t wake us up. I could juuuuust make out the neighbors in the summer with open windows.
I have a pet theory that boys from small breeders are more polite and less likely to be aggressive than boys from hatcheries. People with their birds in their backyard have a vested interest in roosters that aren’t assholes, and are more likely to eat a nasty guy. Based on my own experiences and what I’ve seen on other people’s birds, it holds up. :lol: (Might still be wrong!)
Oh, Easter eggers/amerucanas can lay blue, green or brown. Even white. Lots of people expect green and are disappointed. They’re crossbreds and it just depends what egg color genetics they get.
I’m not sure I’m up for 11 chickens at the get-go. I want to start small and go from there. My other thought is that if it weren’t to work out, or something were to go sideways, I am not sure I could handle the loss of 10+ lives. My pets have always been like children to me, as I have no human ones. A rooster and more chickens (of suitable size and breed) could be added later. right?
And I did have another thought after I responded above re: having a rooster - I’m not sure I want to eat fertilized eggs. That sounds so silly. I know. I’m a little odd/squeamish about certain foods. But perhaps I could move past that…
Yep, you can add later! If you absolutely don’t want a rooster and can’t see yourself butchering one, you might want to stick with the sex links or auto sexing breeds–then you are SURE to get girlies, and you’re not putting time and energy and emotion into a boy bird you don’t want. The boys ALWAYS seem to be the friendliest, sweetest chicks, sigh. Vent sexing is only about 85-90% reliable. And often the feed stores get straight run (unsexed) and sell them as sexed based on totally unreliable old wives tale methods. Sex links and autosexing breeds have obvious differences at hatch instead.
As long as you’re collecting eggs daily, there’s nearly no visual difference between fertilized eggs and non…fertilized have a small white bullseye (about the size of a pencil eraser) and unfertilized have a small white dot that is slightly smaller instead. It’s something you really have to look for, and very very easy to ignore if you’re not interested. You can check out your store eggs to see
This is what I am planning on using as my chicken coop. I believe we have all the materials on-hand to finish it out. I’ll take some photos tomorrow, if it isn’t pouring rain AGAIN!
We have a 20’X40’ metal pig/hog barn with a 10’ lean-to on each long side (so 40’X40’ total). I actually call it a stable. Its a hand made pole barn - posts on 8’ centers with really thick, heavy duty corrugated metal “siding”. Inside are 10 8’X8’ stalls - 5 on each side of a 4’ wide center isle. Each stall has a door to the lean-to - a 1.5’x2.5’X1" piece of wood on a pulley that lifts the door up like a manual garage door soft-of. Dirt floor inside and under the roof of the two overhangs. The east side lean-to is in a paddock that is used by a horse and pony, but the entire west side isn’t used.
So I was thinking of taking two 8X8 sections inside and two outside to make my coop. This will give the chickens plenty of room inside and outside. It will be plenty big enough for humans to move around in too. Both the inside and outside would be fenced from ground to ceiling joist.
We have several 8’ hog panels (really heavy duty wire panels with narrow slats) we never ended using for another project - so I’ll use those outside (digging down 1’ as ya’ll suggested). Then we’ll fence over that with either our left-over non-climb horse fence or good sturdy welded wire (neither rust and are extremely durable). That combo should be very sturdy.
The walls inside for the stalls are massive - true 2" lumber. The walls are about 3’ high. I’ll just take some of the other stalls apart and build the walls up in the 8’ X 16’ coop space, then wire fencing up at the top once the wood is up to where the wall meets the roof. That should provide enough air circulation.
The only thing that is lacking is electricity. I’m going to call my electrician tomorrow to find out what it would cost to run electric from my horse barn over to the stable (about 250/300 feet away). I think its important to have power in there - lights would make things much easier, plugging in power tools would be handy, and to have an outlet for a heater for the horses water trough would be a real luxury.
Could it be done without electricity? Yes. Could the electric be added later? Sure. We’ll just have to see what the price tag is. Its been many years since I got an estimate to have this done and I don’t even remember now what the estimate was.
And I need to call my vet (they take care of all my animals, as they are a large and small animal vet) to make sure they take care of chickens too… would make sense that they do, but best to check.
The person that I spoke to at the Co-Op said that the chicks they get are pullets, and that about 1, maybe 2, in 100 chicks turns out to be a rooster. So while it is a risk, she said it was very, very low - that the farm where the babies come from does a really good job of sorting them. Now she might have been putting me on, but typically the people at the Co-Op are fairly straight shooters, which is why I called them instead of TSC.
And no, I can’t see myself butchering a rooster. The only animal I could put down is one obviously suffering (like if one were attacked and obviously in pain and couldn’t be saved). And I’d probably be very emotional afterwards. Yes, I’m a weenie! :winkgrin: The only thing I kill with impunity is spiders and camel crickets… well, because they’re just creepy.
Soooo that’s not realistic on the % miss on the sexing :lol: The hatcheries themselves tout that 85-90% figure. The co-op just isn’t hearing about the pullets that weren’t
Your coop plan sounds great! Rule of thumb for you is 4 sq ft per bird inside the coop and 10 sq ft per bird in the run. That’s floor space. You’ll also want 12" of roost space per bird. Definitely use hardware cloth–best price is Amazon, the half inch is good. Weasels, rats and snakes can get through bigger spaces. Raccoons have smart little hands and can climb, so consider them when you build.
And spiders need love, too! Lots of spiders actually kill other, bigger, scarier spiders. :yes: Antman’s Hill on FB is a super cool page to follow to learn more about the good guys 
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