I'm glad you are thinking ahead, researching and planning this, rather than just jumping in. I started keeping chooks again this year as a way to provide higher quality food for my family in these hard times (also started a vegie garden that will be expanded next year for the same reason). It sounds as though you are thinking about this from the right standpoint - how to "do it on the cheap". I was determined that my chooks would pay for themselves within a year and so far I am on track to meet that goal. Many on here though have spent hundreds if not thousands on coops, equipment and feed. If it is for a hobby and not to save money, that's great. But if you, like me, are looking to feed your family and NOT have this cost more than it would have cost to just go out and buy the eggs, you do need to be careful about your startup costs and realize that at least in the initial phase, it will cost more than it will save. Even if you are able to buy point of lay pullets, at the minimum you will have the cost of the pullets and cost of a bag of feed. And that's if you are able to build a coop, run, feeder & waterer out of materials you already have on hand. Also, even point of lay pullets probably won't lay for the first few weeks you have them due to the stress of the move, so you would be feeding them without any return on the investment to begin with. What needs to be weighed is whether you have the money for the startup costs now, or whether you are better off buying eggs in the short term and making chicken raising a long-term goal for when other finances have stabilized out.
