I am a new chicken owner and have been following this thread. My limited 7 week advice to you would be to get some babies. I had never handled a chicken before and I got 5 babies when they were a week old. I have thought about how much easier it has become to handle them because I have been doing it since they were small. If someone told me to pick up a fairly large chicken before I had the experience with the little ones, I don't think I would have known how and probably would have scared the heck out of the chicken and myself. It is also really fun looking at them grow each day and get their feathers in. It's just amazing how fast they change. I look at the photos I took when I got them and I don't even remember them being that small. I love handling them and watching them. I talk to them all the time and they know my voice and I really think they know their names. I want to get a few more chicks but am waiting until this spring when I can spend the time like I did with these. I feel like they all trust me. If you get an older flock, you won't have any insight into their individual personalities.
After saying all this, maybe you don't care about this aspect of it and just want the eggs! At any rate, this is from one new chicken person to another. Hope it makes you feel better about not getting that flock. Asking questions seems to only tell me that these are good owners for anything that I care about, be it chickens, dogs, goats, cats.....etc. I'll watch to see how it all plays out and please post photos of what ever you get.
