I just started to raise chickens on my own but I come from a family who has raised chickens in the past. I know quite a bit about chickens, mostly from stories my grandma and mother told me about their experiences raising them. My friend raised chickens for many years so I also have knowledge of his experiences. Even then, it's hands on experience that has helped me the most. Actually raising chickens will train you well.
Thanks to the internet, if I have questions now I use resources such as this website to answer most of my questions. Right now I have a couple broody hens, one is a black Silky and the other a Araucana mix (who lays white eggs btw!)... They take turns mostly and even share the nest. This will be interesting when the chicks finally hatch. Who will they bond with? The Silky? The Araucana? Or, maybe both?
There's 8 blue/green eggs all showing signs of development. The father of those eggs is a pure white Araucana rooster. All his Araucana hens are Redish brown beauties from south africa. I lucked out in my area because there's a chicken enthusiast (she's a local elementary school teacher) experimenting in cross breeding rare chickens. She's purchased rare chicks off the internet and raises them to cross. I've bought some of her excess purchases and experiments. I now have 3 pure black Silky hens, 3 pure south african Araucana hens, 1 grey colored Araucana mix hen (Little miss broody) and 3 Rhode Island red mixed hens (Big tasty brown eggs!), plus of course Mr Stud my pure white Araucana rooster! He came from a run she purchased and only wanted the hens. Now I get to experiment, muwahahahah! (evil scientist laugh) It will be fun to see what my new babies will look like having redish moms and a pure white dad!
Here's a selection of eggs my girls lay. The tiny one was from my youngest black Silky. Her first real attempt at an egg? BTW, it's just a little bigger than the worlds smallest recorded chicken egg! "Missed it by that much!"
& 
