Some of you probably saw my thread in the pest/predator section, that I suffered an attack a couple weeks ago and lost 6 of my 10 hens. 5 of the 6 were 3 years old and were about to be culled anyway but I still didn't want that to happen. I was left with 2 Amberlinks that I bought last year and are 1 year old and 2 barred rocks that are from my original flock and 3 years old. I have been searching locally for 2 weeks trying to find a couple different breeds that were less then a year old. Yesterday I found a guy online and ended up with 5 Buff's, 1 RIR, and 4 Barred Rocks. Those were the last that he had left, some of them hatched this March and some later in April. The ones from March have red combs and he said some just started laying. The others have small pale combs but shouldn't be too long. I have them pinned in my garden right now (24'x24') and they are scratching through what is left. I put down a couple skids for a floor and just made a "lean to" with a tarp from the top of the fence to the bottom of the skids for some shelter. Still very warm here so that should hold them over during quarantine. I made a similar shelter in the garden last year when I added the amber links to my flock and it worked good. I also clipped their wings as I learned last year the Amberlinks were able to fly right over the 6 foot fence. I doubt the Buffs or rocks would fly over but I trimmed them anyway just to make sure they don't get out day one and end up lost.
I absolutely love buffs. I don't have any now (my last one was one of the ones I recently lost) but they are maybe my very favorite kind of chicken.
