Hi Rachel,
How exciting! You sound like you've done your research really well! The enclosure sounds very nice, very big for four chickens, especially if you're in the city!
About identifying, I know that Leghorns are yellowish, but I don't know much apart from that, especially about the breeds you mentioned. The Frizzle chicks I have didn't start frizzing until about a week or two, when they grew their wing feathers. And Easter Egger, you probably wouldn't know until it layed an egg. But I agree that you should take pictures and make a thread on the breeds section of the forum. There are lots of experienced chicken-raisers here who will no doubt be able to tell you!
As for bringing home chicks, well:
- the 'bringing home' part is easy. You basically just need a cardboard box with newspaper on the bottom and airholes. It doesn't have to be all that big, especially if you just have four chicks. For a short journey, it shouldn't matter whether they have a heat lamp, but if you're worried, put them where the aircon vent points and turn the aircon onto hot.
- very small chicks will need to be kept inside at first. I tend to use a small, square, wire bird cage, put straw on the bottom and a container of food and one of water, with a heat lamp attached to point to a corner, opposite where the food is.
- depending on what your weather's like, start taking them outside in the sun without a lamp for a few hours at about a week or two, and then build it up to most of the day. If you can create a small enclosure on the lawn, they'll love it in the sun. You can buy 50cmX50cm squares of basically bird-cage-sides which link together from most cheep shops; they're good to build temporary enclosures of for small chicks. Of course, if it's very cold, you probably wouldn't want little chicks outside by themselves!
- if you don't have any other chooks, the chicks can probably go out to the coop around 1 - 1 1/2 months, maybe later if it's cold where you are. If you have other chooks, don't put them in until they're big enough to hold their own. The pecking order can be vicious. We often subdivide the main enclosure(s) and put the new chickens in one part and the old ones in the other part, so that they can get to know each other first. We do this when we get full-sized chickens, too.
I hope I've been helpful,
from Rachel.
