Oh gosh! Have they all gone insane together? I put my 2 naughty ones back with the others this morning ~ partly because we are heating up & partly because we won't be here Tuesday to monitor~ & it was on! I've never seen such shenanigans from my lot. : Quiet now. It's got too hot to fight.
Joining in a bit late here...I don't have the space to do flock self replacement.Or I would. However if I introduced a rooster my neighbours would be very unhappy, eggs or no eggs.
I do buy from a reputable breeder & I do have [& will be adding more] Campines, who are both rare & endangered & whom I like enormously. My girls are supplying 1/2 the neighbours with eggs on our street. I'm not really keen on raising chicks...So my motives & aspirations & choices are different again. I'm still learning because last time my choices were even more limited. Now I know more I will make different choices in the future.
It's been a great way to bond!
At Janet's worst, I sat on my stool in the coop and watched her. When she was nasty, I'd stand up and she'd often behave. On really bad nights, I'd poke her with along stick (gently of course), thinking I was asserting my rooster/human authority, and that had an immediate positive effect.Roosting has been nuts for a while now but Hattie has been the main instigator. Not tonight. Lilly started with just Hattie. Mal & Aurora waited as long as they could on the porch watching it go on but it was getting dark. They had to go in. Aurora even ran over to me at one point. I thought for a moment she was going to try roosting on my head again!
Chickens be crazy!
Very interesting. This sounds much more like how it is here. Lots of the chicken keepers here can and will (I'm equally boringJoining in a bit late here...
It's very interesting to learn how things work in other places. There are big differences between my experience here in Adelaide and everyone else, even some differences between the market here in Adelaide and up in Brisbane near where @Ribh lives.
I don't know of any hatcheries in Adelaide that offer sales to the public. The egg and meat producers have breeding programs and hatcheries, but if at all, they sell pullets to the fodder stores who then sell the pullets to the public. Chicks in bins and chicks through the mail is unheard of, but fertile eggs through the mail seems to be a thing some breeders offer.
But I don't know anyone who's bought their pullets from fodder stores (apart from myself - my first three pullets were from the fodder store). Everyone I know with chooks can tell the story of where the bird was hatched and who hatched them. Mary and Janet were from breeders focussing on one or two breeds. My neighbours bred and hatched their own four hens (now 8yo and still laying when the moon is blue) and their new, younger hens (3yo and laying like clockwork) were hatched by their brother's neighbour. Sandy is an exception to the rule, having been found walking the streets.
The local council's "good neighbour" bylaws rule out noise, so most roosters are precluded from suburban flocks. So there's no point in fodder stores offering cockerels for sale.
But the chookless neighbours love my hens and bring their kids in to see them
) tell you the family history of their flock. The members of the chicken club here were appalled when they read how people acquire their chickens in the US on BYC.
maybe 2. 
