Beginner help please

[CarboneFamily]

Welcome!
Think about what you want these chickens to do; eggs daily, different colored eggs, be social with people, taste good? Bantam sized (small) or large sized?
Climate matters, so you should look at breed types that manage cold weather.
Henderson's poultry breed chart, feathersite, and 'Storey's Illustrated Guide to Poultry' are great places to look. Also the Cackle and MurrayMcMurray catalogs, online and paper.
Then, pick some that just look and sound good to you; start somewhere! We all have our favorites, which have changed over time, part of the fun.
Easter Eggers, Speckled Sussex, Buckeyes (from Ohio!), Chanteclers (my favorites), French Marans, Plymouth Rocks, all good choices. There are many more!
Because your birds will be confined most of the time, avoid breeds described as 'active' or excellent free range types. Good flying skills won't help you either.
Silkies, Seramas, and frizzles need some help in cold weather, not best either.
Build big!!!
AT LEAST four to six square feet per bird in a coop, and ten square feet in the run. Woods coops are really nice, see @Ted Brown 's thread about his build.
Otherwise, modifying a garden shed is good, with an added run. In snow country, a roofed run will make you very happy!!! Lots of ventilation too.
Mary

We want egg layers our children love eggs and will eventually want to have them help take care of them

 

[Gigi_The_Chicken]

Rhode Island Reds seem to have your desired qualities

 

[3KillerBs]

The Wife and I are starting our chicken journey this spring ! Trying to prepare our selfs and have several questions and thought this might be a good place to ask . 1) we live in north western part of Ohio and it gets pretty cold here during winter what breed of chicken would you recommend? 2) we are wanting to start with six chickens we are not going to free range due to living next to a major highway what size coop and run should I plan to build how much room do I need for 6 chickens ? Thank you in advance!

Welcome to BYC.

Any common "farmyard" dual-purpose chicken will be widely adaptable to many different climates so Go Ahead, Pick the Prettiest Chickens!

If you regularly see temperatures below 0F you probably want to avoid breeds with large, single combs and if you're on sticky clay soil or get a lot of heavy, wet snow you'll probably want to avoid feathered feet.

My favorite hatchery, especially for small orders, is Ideal because they don't have a minimum number to order, just a minimum amount to spend -- though you might want to order from a hatchery that's closer to you than Texas both to reduce shipping time and to get chicks from flocks that are bred to do well in your climate.

One strategy to deal with minimum chick orders is to order more than you want and sell the extras -- but that only works for people who are not so prone to sentimental attachments that they can't bear to sell chicks they've raised.

AT LEAST four to six square feet per bird in a coop, and ten square feet in the run. Woods coops are really nice, see @Ted Brown 's thread about his build.
Otherwise, modifying a garden shed is good, with an added run. In snow country, a roofed run will make you very happy!!! Lots of ventilation too.

Good advice here. I've got some math for you -- and a link to an article about why the math should be considered a guideline rather than a hard-and-fast rule: https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/how-much-room-do-chickens-need.66180/

The Usual Guidelines

For each adult, standard-sized hen you need:

• 4 square feet in the coop (.37 square meters)
• 10 square feet in the run (.93 square meters),
• 1 linear foot of roost (.3 meters),
• 1/4 of a nest box,
• And 1 square foot (.09 square meters) of permanent, 24/7/365 ventilation, preferably located over the birds' heads when they're sitting on the roost.

6 hens

• 24 square feet in the coop. 4'x6' is the only really practical build for this given the common dimensions of lumber. If you can't walk into it, put the access door in the middle of the long side to make sure you can reach all areas of the coop because a stubborn chicken WILL press itself into/lay an egg in the back corner where you can't reach.
• 6 feet of roost
• 60 square feet in the run. 6'x10' or 8'x8'.
• 6 square feet of ventilation.
• 2 nest boxes, to give the hens a choice

One place where new chicken-keepers often go wrong is with inadequate ventilation -- often because almost all premade coops are severely lacking in ventilation.

Speaking of prefab coops:

Rules of Thumb

• If it looks like a dollhouse it's only suitable for toy chickens.
• If it's measured in inches instead of feet it's too small.
• If your walk-in closet is larger than the coop-run combo you're thinking of buying think carefully about whether you have an utterly awesome closet or are looking at a seriously undersized chicken coop.
• If it has more nestboxes than the number of chickens it can legitimately hold the designer knew nothing about chickens' actual needs and it probably has other design flaws too.

Ted's Woods Coop mentioned above is an utterly AWESOME design for temperate and cool climates (I am given to understand that there is a variation for the south too).

My Little Monitor Coop is only a 4'x4' for 4 chickens, but a competent handyman could expand it to a 4'x6' -- moving the access door to the long wall opposite the nests and, for people who get cold winters, adding a cover to block the low window.

There are hundreds of coop articles on this website so browse around to see what appeals to you -- keeping in mind the space requirements and the possibility that you might get more chickens in the future.

 

[50-45-1]

What are your plans when they slow there laying?
I would recommend Longhorns. They are prolific layers, eat less feed, and are entertaining and active. Most lay a white or tinted egg and come in colors other than white. Another plus for this breed is that they are non broody. A broody hen stops laying until she is broken from it.
If you plan to cull your old layers when they slow down, go with sex links or production breeds. Comets, jet stars, isa browns. They lay big brown eggs. And lots of them, but wear out and usually die of reproduction issues after 3 years.
Quite a few of the heavier breeds like brahamas, giants and orphingtons just naturally lay less eggs per year.
Your climate in Ohio is similar to mine but a little warmer in winter, any breed can work for you. Just go to Murry McMurry, Ideal, or other hatchery website and read the bio for breeds that you are interested in to narrow your choices.
Good Luck and have fun!

 

[Folly's place]

"Longhorns"???

 

[3KillerBs]

"Longhorns"???

Gotta love that autocorrect!

 

[50-45-1]

Well they are a handsome breed!
Real low on the egg production scale tho!

 

[NatJ]

I would recommend Longhorns. They are prolific layers, eat less feed, and are entertaining and active. Most lay a white or tinted egg and come in colors other than white. Another plus for this breed is that they are non broody. A broody hen stops laying until she is broken from it.

Longhorns are a kind of cattle.
Leghorns are the kind of chicken being described.
(Autocorrect likes to mess up the names of chicken breeds.)

 

[NatJ]

...what breed of chicken would you recommend? 2) we are wanting to start with six chickens

We want egg layers our children love eggs and will eventually want to have them help take care of them

I suggest you get one each of several breeds, because it is fun to have chickens who all look different from each other.

One possible list:
Gold Sexlink (also called Red Star, Gold Comet, ISA Brown, and many other names)
Black Sexlink (also called Black Star)
Silver Laced Wyandotte
Rhode Island Red
2 Easter Eggers (sometimes sold as "Ameraucanas" or "Americaunas")

That would give you 4 that lay brown eggs, and 2 that should lay blue or green eggs. Easter Eggers often look different from each other, so it will probably be easy to tell them all apart from each other.

The best white egg layers are White Leghorns, but they have large floppy combs. I did not suggest them, because the large floppy combs can have trouble in cold weather.

Of course you do not need to exactly follow this list-- there are many breeds of chickens that could work very well for you, and which ones are prettiest is a matter of personal preference.

2) we are wanting to start with six chickens we are not going to free range due to living next to a major highway what size coop and run should I plan to build how much room do I need for 6 chickens ?

I see other people have already suggested 4x6 feet as the smallest size coop for 6 chickens. I would recommend you go a bit bigger, to at least 4x8 or 6x6, because it is nice to have a little more room. That little bit more room comes in handy for many purposes: you can put the feeder & waterer inside while still leaving enough floor space for the chickens (nice in bad weather), or you can put in a dog crate to separate one chicken (if she is broody or has been picked on), or you can keep a secenth chicken if the hatchery sends a spare, or they can just have a bit more room which is always nice.

For the chickens, there is no such thing as "too big" a coop. (For the people, unfortunately "too expensive" and "doesn't fit in the yard" are possible problems.)

 

[TJAnonymous]

Gotta love that autocorrect!

I actually looked to see if he was from Texas....ha ha