Best Age Bird For First Timer

[aart]

Do your homework before you buy 6 month olds too. it would be really easy for someone not honest to screw you over with sick or old hens, or a rooster that no one wants. maybe you'll just want to wait til next year then you have time to make sure the coop and run are good, settle in, and do more research with breeds and care, then start with chicks next year. Raising chicks certainly hasnt been hard.

Good luck with your new home

Ditto Dat^^^

Chickens can be very easy to care for.... after you climb the learning curve, and it can be steep!
There are a lot of little things that can make maintenance and daily care much simpler, and there are little things that can be a PITA to fix after the fact.

There's a lot to learn about housing, feeding, predators, behaviors.
Housing is the biggest issue and it sounds like you might be ahead of the game there depending on what kind of coop comes with your new place.

I fully agree that moving to a new place and starting out with chickens are both time and resource demanding, but then I don't like dealing with drama, emergencies actions and animal crisis', I'd rather wait and plan to avoid those things.

Another aspect of getting older chickens vs chicks, is bringing in disease and pests with older birds. Planning to house chicks ahead of time will serve you well in the future, because there will always be more chicks down the road and having the facilities to deal with them is nice.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

I'm a why wait kind of person. Heck I'd even get straight run birds if I planned to get into meat birds next year anyway. My thought on that is your planning on butchering and may never have butchered before so why not get to know about that side of breeding/ raising chickens with a few birds the first year. You could very well find out butchering is not for you or that dealing with roosters is not for you. Find this out with the few first year birds so it's not overwhelming. All pullets is easy with no worries and nothing but enjoyment and egg collecting if starting with older birds. Let's say you invest next year in Cornish X, feed and house them (as they should be kept separate from laying birds) only to discover you can't bring yourself to butcher.

Opinions are what they are, mine is simply to get birds that are young but not chicks as you'll be so late in the season and should want eggs this fall, winter and have some for hatching your own in spring if chickens become something your going to really get into. So yes, you'd keep your best cockerel over winter for breeding or decide right then and there your not into males as they really are different dealing with than an all female flock. With this all in mind I'd get a quality bird that will give you eggs, table meat on culled cockerels and have a resale value to unload if chickens are not for you or just make getting rid of excess spring chicks easier. To me this strategy is "easing into it" due to your thoughts of meat birds and breeding in future.

Craigslist Indianapolis has a promising breeder of show quality birds and supplier of hatchery layer sex links. It doesn't look smarmy to me at all, multiple ages and adjusted pricing.

http://indianapolis.craigslist.org/grd/4965101906.html

Note column F is the heritage standard bred Rhode Island Red straight run, also is Blue Laced Red Wyandotte but that's not a recognized variety though in demand.

 

[Bill Matthews]

Raising chickens is really easy....DON"T OVER THINK IT!.......Any of the production breeds from commercial hatcheries will do fine as starters...New Hampshires are an excellent choice because they grow quickly....Production Reds or Red X Rocks would do fine as well and should be available from most hatcheries even in June.....Good luck and ENJOY the hobby.....Be careful with Craigslist and Flea Market chickens...Many of the brochures available online will have all the info you need to start...If you happen to screw up, so what....Just start over!