Hi from Missouri

Hello all,
I am new here and haven't had a chance to read any forums yet. I'm just giving a shout out to say Hi
I have become interested in having some backyard chickens. I'm going to start a small garden this spring too. I want to do things naturally with no pesticides etc.
I have a lot to learn! I'm also very interested in Heirloom varieties of vegetables, fruit trees, and grapes. I am also very interested in having heritage chickens. I'm not interested in showing them. I showed dogs for 25 years and am burned out on that!
I have an old barn that i need to get reroofed before building the chicken coop part. So I will be posting pics and asking for advice on that when the time comes. I hope to have the coop finished by late spring, early summer.
I'll do some reading on the breeds and will have lots of questions about too.
I know I want a bird hearty enough for Missouri winters, sweet , can raise their young and give me eggs. I can't kill anything so my neighbor will have to help me cull . I am not a vegetarian but I can't do the butchering. I'll probably name them all, lol. My neighbor is going to get goats and is going to give me milk for my soap. Neither of us know what we are doing, lol.
So anyway, Hi!!!!

Welcome to BYC -- so glad you've joined us!
You are at the start of a wonderful adventure and it sounds like you are going about it the right way by learning before you start. There are so many breeds that might fit what you are looking for -- knowing a little more about what you want to get from this would help to narrow that list. For example:
do you prefer a particular egg color -- white, brown, very dark brown, blue, green?
how many birds total are you wanting to keep?
how many eggs, per week, would you like to get from each of the birds?
do you like or dislike the idea of feathered heads, faces or legs?

Great to have another poultry lover!

Thank you for the warm welcome!!
I may be overly optimistic about having my barn ready by early summer. I'll need a lot of advice on building a safe home for them. We have a lot of coyotes, foxes, hawks, owls and huge black snakes! Eww.
I'm willing to go slow and do my research do I can do it the first time.
I don't care what the chicken looks like, as long it is not something that needs extra care for grooming.
As for egg color, they all taste the same right?
I would like something duo purpose so we could eat them too. It gets really cold in Kansas City Missouri. So it needs to be hearty. They will provide eggs for my husband and I and the couple next door. We are all past the children age, lol.
I was looking at one while ago but forgot the name already. I think it said duo purpose and a Native American breed.
I am getting concerned with food sources and chemicals so trying to learn to raise some of my own. I found sources to buy free range pork and non hormone beef.
I'm sure y'all will give me great advice for my new adventures!
I'll try and post a pic of my old lean to and old stall.
Thanks again!

If you haven't looked over the Learning Center yet, it's well worth the time. It's full of articles that will help you get off on the right foot. Here's one of the articles you might like:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/...cken-guide-to-picking-backyard-chicken-breeds

The Livestock Conservancy is a good website too, lots of information about heritage chickens and their characteristics.
https://livestockconservancy.org/index.php/heritage/internal/poultry-breeds

Have fun and if you have questions, always feel free to ask...there are a lot of helpful members here.

Thank you, I'll do that! I do have a very small raised house thingy. I had a couple of pigeons in it. I could build a pen for that and maybe put a couple of good layers in that and put my others in the barn. I have a lot to learn. Thank you for the links. My barn is really a large lean too with a horse stall on one side. It needs a lot of work!! The stall is about 13 foot x 13 foot maybe 15. I forgot, lol. The lean too is about the same. I'm going to build them a nice fenced area to peck around. I might could put one kind on one side and another on the other side!
Thanks again. I'll get to reading tonight.

Howdy from Kansas, Ayriad, and ! Happy you joined our community! NFC gave you some great links so I'll just say best wishes and thanks for joining BYC!!

G’Day from down under Ayriad Welcome!

I hope you enjoy being a BYC member. There are lots of friendly and very helpful folks here so not only is it overflowing with useful information it is also a great place to make friends and have some fun. Unlike non chicken loving friends, family and colleagues, BYC’ers never tire of stories or pictures that feature our feathered and non feathered friends

Nice to meet you. Hope you will enjoy Backyard chickens as much as we do.

Thanks for the welcome y'all. I have already stumbled across some other non-chicken forums I am interested in too.
Omg!!! And seeing pics of the different breeds!!! So many choices!!! It will take me forever to choose a favorite to start with, lol.