You need to provide them with security from predators, a warm dry place to roost, clean water, and enough food for them. You can get them at any time of the year that you can find them; just keep in mind that if you get chicks then you will need to set up a great deal more equipment to keep them happy than adults.

I would recommend going to your local library and taking out a few books on chicken keeping. The more you read up on them the better prepared you will be. Chickens do not require a lot of time but they do require a commitment of food, water and shelter. As Brendan mentioned security from predators is very important. It sounds like you may already have a good set up to work with.

How hot are your summers? If it gets very hot for long periods of time you may want to stick w/lighter egg laying breeds. Some of the common heavy breeds do not like the heat. If you just want egg layers you could go with sex-links or leghorns. If you go on Ideal hatchery's site you will find they even have their own developed breed of egg layer.

It really depends on what you want in a chicken, you will find zillions of different breeds to choose from but keep in mind that many of the fancy cool types of breeds do not make the best egg producers.

-Sheila

As well, do you want to interact with your flock, or just have them as egg-machines that run around? Some breeds are flightier than others, some are more docile, some can become very friendly. While individual hens can transcend the breed types, go with what you think you will want. Of course, it's all subject to change without notice....

Another thing to decide is if you want any roosters or not - chicks can be purchased for only females, and if you buy adult (or almost adult) hens, you can choose. With a rooster, you will have crowing, and maybe aggression (varies from breed to breed, and with individual roosters) and, if the hens go broody, new chicks.

Read books, look at the web sites, and then decide.

I think you should go and get some books and really get to know what you need to do. There is a lot to consider.

Thanks, all. I have read a couple of books that weren't much help (they were for larger operations than we want to get into) but I will keep looking and reading. Thanks for the info about lighter breeds--we do get hot here! And any chickens we have will end up being pets, so we'll try for the friendly ones. No roosters, thank you! We'll just get adult or almost-adult hens and give them a life that Brittany Spears would envy! In fact, I may name one of the hens Brittany . . . .

As others have stated reading as much as possible is always a good start. Beyond that it sounds like you have sound starting point to proceed from.

Our chickens are treated somewhat like pets, enjoy a great deal of doting care and consequently are extremely friendly for the most part.Predators have been our biggest problem, but through a variety of means the threats have been eliminated one by one.

Many universities have vast resources available on the web, such as the following link, that I found useful.

Here is a link that might be useful: Poultry resource link

Moretogrow:

Thank you! The Purdue and Kansas State sites are particularly informative. We are beginning to feel that raising chickens could be a lot of fun, and well within our capabilities.

I've got a chicken info site here, with information, links, etc., including my experience with chickens:

http://home.earthlink.net/~velvetsparrow/VSChick.htm

You are smart to learn about chickens first, that way if something happens you can be prepared, and also can spot it quicker if illness strikes.

The most important thing you can do for your birds is to house them securely (predators are amazingly strong and can be VERY determined to get a chicken dinner) and keep them healthy. If you aren't raising them for meat, expect to become attached to them, as chickens have loads of personality and affection to give. :) But if you fail to provide a secure home for them and a predator comes and massacres your flock, your going to have a whole lot of heartbreak and regret. It's happened a lot on this site, if you read some old threads you'll see it again and again. :(

Also, sooner or later you will hear the siren call of raising chicks--either via broody hen or an incubator. Raising chicks is an incredible experience and one that shouldn't be missed--especially if you have children. You'll get hooked on raising chicks, so fair warning. :)

feathersite.com has lots of pictures of chickens arranged by breed, with some breed/breeder info. eggbid.com has people offering fertile hatching eggs, chicks and adult birds. Mississippi State Univ. has a great poultry department online with info that can save your hide. Check in your area for an avian (bird) vet that will see your chickens--line one up now, BEFORE an emergency strikes. Most vets can and do see chickens, so if you catch flak from the staff, ask politely to speak to the vet and ask him.

Read up on bird sites and bird books in general--chickens are, after all, birds, and a LOT of the information for parrots, cockatiels, etc. applies to chickens as well.

Chickens have the intellectual and emotional levels of a human 2 year old child. They can and do show affection, get jealous, want revenge, pout, etc. Each bird will have a distinct personality all it's own. Decide in advance which breeds you want and be careful about mixing different breeds--don't put a single sweet bird such as a Silkie or Polish in with a flock of Rhode Island Reds (aggressive), for example.

That's all off the top of my head, if you want or need to email me, feel free, :)

Velvet ~:>

Velvet,

Thank you! Your advice is most appreciated, and we will contact you with more questions/concerns if we need to. The websites you referred to will be of great help. Our main concern is to have healthy, happy chickens that will lay eggs for us when they want to, and eat all the bugs in the garden! We will probably have the most elderly and cosseted flock in the county.

If you want pet chickens, may I recommend Buff Orpingtons? They are well-known for their good dispositions.

Leghorn roosters can be mighty mean, more so than other breeds. I had a running battle with my mother's rooster when I was a kid. He spurred me more than once, but then, I probably deserved it, as I liked to poke at him with a stick through the fence to get him riled up. We had other roosters, but they were not on the attack.

The White Leghorn hens are some of the best layers, but don't depend on them to be mothers.

Rhode Island Red, Barred Rock and Banty hens make excellent mothers, and are broody (meaning they often take to sitting on the nest to hatch eggs).

It is such a joy to watch a mother hen with her babies, and she will care and protect all of them, even if they are ducks or quail!

You will need to lock them up at dark to keep them safe from possums and raccoons, as those varmints will steal chickens in a heartbeat.

Baby chicks need warmth, so you would probably need a brooder and a small room to keep them in until they get big enough to move to the hen house and chicken yard.

Chickens need fresh water every day. Laying hens need oyster shell so they will lay eggs with strong shells. You can feed them laying chow, but they also need a few handfuls of grains thrown out for them, too. They also love clabber. Optimally, they prefer to run free to eat greens and bugs. The eggs are so much more flavorful from free range chickens.

You might want to check on what's best to give the baby chicks in the way of antibiotics, to protect them from disease (coccidiosis, etc.) Also, if they get overcrowded, they will turn cannibalistic toward each other.

If you want eggs, you will need to put some fake eggs in the nests, to encourage hens to lay. Do not be surprised if chicken snakes swallow them down.

Check out Stromberg's -- they are on-line and also have a beautiful color catalog. They not only sell chickens, but other birds, equipment and supplies.

Your roosters will be great alarm clocks, especially if you want to wake up around 4 A.M.

Chicken manure is one of the very best organic fertilizers, but it has to be very well composted (aged) or it will burn your crop. Use it sparingly.

One and half acres huh? Don't know what your zoning is but...

We are currently on a one acre lot, and our neighbor (.6 acres) has a flock of about 15 chickens or so. Chicken and coop are 5 feet from our mutual lot line.

A suggestion - when you are housing your coop, please make sure that the coop is WELL away from your neighbors and yours mutual lot line. 5 feet is not enough away for us NOT to smell his coop odors. Like 20 feet would be good. The coop REEKS when it rains.

Maybe a smaller amount of chickens would prevent this.

Also, do not get r**sters unless you have larger acreage. Ours has several, and they begin crowing at 4:00-4:30 am and also during the night. They are VERY VERY loud enough to be heard a half mile away. Please do not subject your neighbors to this. A 1-2/2 acre lot is not big enough to mitigate sound problems. They may call the sheriff on you and he can write up a nuisance noise ticket for you.

If I am correct, you do not need a rooster anyway - the chickens will lay eggs without one, just feed them egg-laying mash... is this correct?

And yes, predators have been a problem. Coyotes, foxes and racoons increased around here. As well as increased mice populations.

just my 2 cents...

Najoba, thank you for the information. I looked up Buff Orpingtons, and they sure are pretty! They will be near the top of our list for possible breeds. We have heard that Leghorns are somewhat aggressive. We don't plan on having a rooster, nor raising chicks, so perhaps Leghorn hens would be okay for us. I had no idea there was such a thing as a "fake egg". I can hardly wait to go to the local bean and feed and ask for fake eggs! Having someone with your experience help us out sure is nice.
Klimkm, I wasn't clear in my posting. We have 1 1/2 acres fenced near the barn for chickens. We have over 9 acres and no near neighbors. When we lived in town the people across the alley had chickens that would line up at our chain link fence and watch me garden. Disconcerting to say the least--all those beady little eyes. . . . We hope to keep the coop clean and let the hens free-range as much as possible during the day, so perhaps their coop will not reek, rain or not!

Just chiming in for my fellow Orpington fans (I currently live in an apartment in Arlington, VA, so no chickens for me).

My Buff Orpingtons and Black Australorps were very very sweet. My Buff Orpington hens were absolute dolls, and the Black Australorps were similarly sweet. I am a fan of black animals, so maybe I am biased, but I am a huge fan of Orpingtons and Australorps, as far as personality goes. I had Leghorns, Americaunas, Sebrights, etc., but my Orpington/Australorp hens were the sweetest pet-like chickens I owned.

The average American family isn't going to eat enough eggs to keep up with more than a dozen hens, regardless of the breed (barring really specialty breeds or banties). You don't need any sort of special egg-laying breed (like Leghorns) to keep your family stocked with eggs. I bought most of my chickens from Murray McMurray, but they were a wide variety of breeds. They still laid way more eggs than we (and neighbors and coworkers) could keep up with.

For what it's worth, the fake egg thing isn't a must. Most of the time the hens start in laying just fine. Once in a great while there is a problem for whatever reason, and people have had some success slipping a fake egg or two in the nests to give the hens ideas.

I don't see why you can just take a couple of supermarket eggs out of your fridge and try those for a day or so if the need arises...

I've found that hens prefer the dark, hidey-hole type nest. They instinctively want to feel like they are hiding their eggs in order to thwart predators. I use simple wooden nest boxes with lots of straw for nest material and a small wooden lip on the front of the box to keep egg from rolling out and the straw contained. I then stapled a length of black landscaping cloth like a curtain across the front of the boxes, and cut a slit up the middle of each opening so the hens could come and go as they pleased. The landscape cloth provides the semi dark that the girls love, yet allows air to circulate so the nest boxes don't get too hot. The hens love it.

Velvet ~:>

Thanks to all the great information we have received on this forum, and a book on Backyard Chickens that we got, our chickens ought to be well-housed, well-fed, and well-loved. We have started constructing nest boxes, and will use Velvet's advice. We hadn't thought of a lip in front to keep eggs from rolling out! Either our book didn't mention that, or we missed it. I dug out my grandmother's darning egg to use as a fake egg if we need it, or we may use eggs from our fridge after they come to room temperature! Sitting on a frigid egg might be discouraging to our hens. We are going to start out with 12 hens, not chicks. No rooster and lots of free-ranging for the girls. We were a little leery of trying a flock, but after reading all the great posts about how interesting chickens are, and the different breeds, and getting great advice about their care, we are looking forward to having 12 hens to spoil.

Anyone else tried old golf balls for 'nesting teasers?" I only use them in house nests to reduce chances of a snake getting them.

Recently heard about someone who has a radio playing constantly for their flock-claimed it discourages predators. Anyone have a report on this from personal experience? I only used this successfully to keep the raccoons from the sweet corn in MI years ago. For this I used an all night country music station. Never saw evidence of any square dancing parties in the garden-and the marauders left the crop alone. Wonder if different music styles are repulsive to different animals? Anyone game to try this? Have not been able to find any poultry university studies.

When we first started free-ranging our chickens, I used to have a radio playing in the daytime when they were out. We never seemed to have predators other than an occasional raccoon getting into the coop at night so stopped using it. BTW, we have probably trapped at least 10 raccoons in the last few years and so far none of them bothered the chickens at night ---- they sure did eat plenty of feed though. I think we have just been lucky though because I know raccoons can be fierce.

We have since secured their night-time quarters and haven't had a raccoon get in for a long time. Also we have had two baby possums that would wander into the hoop house before we locked it for the night and would eat a huge amount of feed. We now check the house with a flashlight every night. Occasionally one of the cats will spend the night in a nest box, but since they think they are chickens anyway, they aren't a problem.