a pre-beginner wondering where to pre-start ....

[wannabe4birds]

go to your account then to personal details, put your location there and it will show automatically when you post

So easy, even I can do it! Appreciated ....

 

[lazy gardener]

The reading I gave you should keep you busy for a few days. If your garden is made up of raised beds, or growing beds instead of the traditional narrow row planting, You might consider building a tractor to fit the beds or between the beds. Just for grins and giggles, You'll enjoy this, and might find some helpful info for your situation:

 

[N F C]

I enjoyed the video @lazy gardener

 

[lazy gardener]

For a pet flock, I strongly advise you not to get any sex link or production hybrid birds. Stick with pure breds.

 

[HoopyFrood]

Morning! Wow -- beaucoup (beaucoop?) to think about. Here's my situation/stats...

A million thx for all the good info! Mitch

Greetings! Great to have you here! You'll find lots of info - perhaps too much here!

Sound like you are on a similar path to me an my sweetie's approach to chicken keeping (they are a step shy of children). You're in a lot warmer climate than we are so you have a lot more choices in breeds than we do. But if you're interested in sweet, friendly, egg layers, we adore our black Australorp. We were supposed to have two, but lost one as a chick. If I get more chickens (unlikely) I'd get Australorp. And I'd have a hard time imagining a flock with out the zany madcap (in our limited experience) of a couple barred rocks. Like @lazy gardener said, avoid sex link or production birds. We have two production reds and they are the troublemakers of the flock. Thankfully they are good MOST of the time.

Funny you should mention Ft. Knox, that's exactly how I described my coop and run. The only predator you've got that I don't is possum. There's a link under my avatar to "my coop". It's a LOOOOOOONG write up and it's not even done yet... But protecting your flock is a big challenge.

You mentioned free ranging. With your wildlife you may consider a modified approach to "free ranging"... we take ours out 1-2 times a day to forage near sheltering trees under our direct supervision. It's the only way to make sure they're safe, plus it gives us an excuse to just hang out with them outdoors, and to put the rest of the world on hold for 20-40 minutes...

You're in for quite an adventure! You've found the right place to ask questions! Good luck and have fun!