Four questions from me (a complete newbie).

[MareeZoCool]

from Ohio I have no experience with your listed chicken breeds. BUT my experience has been to develope a good relationship with your flock takes time,plenty of it! and patience, you need to be calm with your chickens. Food is the key to their hearts! When you're out in your garden doing some weeding , offer those scraps and bugs you find to your chickens. They love scratching through that clump of dirt & weeds!

 

[DelcoChix]

Welcome to the addictive world of chickens!
Just starting year two with our little flock of hens and it really is like eating potato chips...one (or a handful) just isn't enough!
Of the breeds you've listed we only have Easter Eggers (2), which have turned out to be lovely birds, both in temperament and the pretty egg department--I bought them from our feed store, but they were from Mt. Healthy Hatchery if that helps. Although not on your list I have a few others to check out (I'm next door to you in central Ohio...similar weather..)--our two Buckeye hens are wonderful, as are our Buff Orpingtons--pretty decent egg-layers and great personalities (important to us). They are 'just' hatchery girls but since we're only in this for 4-H and fun, not showing/breeding, that's perfectly fine. Besides the 13 we have now (one year old hens) we also have three Black Copper Marans pullets (6 weeks old from a breeder), six Welsummer and six Speckled Sussex chicks (one week old from Meyer Hatchery)--the day old chick raising is what we really enjoy. They really grow up so fast, three days and feathers coming in, so that's the way I'd go. The incubator is waaayy too tempting for me--too many ways to end up with way more chickens than would be good for us! No self control I guess. One last thing on the chick part--I'd recommend you check out Meyer Hatchery in Polk, OH. The folks there are wonderful to work with, I've bought from them both years and have had no problems whatsoever--I have gone up there to pick them up myself--rather spend more on chicks than shipping! I guess I also liked that most of the breeds they carry (and they have a LOT) you can get already sexed--since we want eggs and didn't want to deal with the roosters it was also for peace-of-mind. There's a lot of roosters out there looking for homes. Also, Meyer has a great, free catalog, which has a decent description of the various breeds, productivity, usual disposition, etc.--kind of a nice resource wherever you end up getting your birds from.
Oh yeah, for 'fun' chickens both our White Sultan and our bantam White Cochin are awesome--they are laying eggs, but they are not as 'productive' as the big girls..they are just really nice to have around and my daughter has had a ball with them.
As far as chicken containment, we do allow our loose in the yard, but only when we are around--hawks, foxes, coyotes, raccoons...etc., all the usual chicken eaters, are around. We have lost two in the lastsix months, both because we didn't keep an eye on them--can't really blame the predators when they were just getting dinner. We do shut them up tight every night in their coop as a 'coon made his/her way into the fenced in run to get the food we had in it overnight. Learned our lesson there.
Good luck in your decision--it's a fun challenge to have to have!
Dawn

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