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- #11
Thank you for the info. We have incubated eggs and raised the chicks for a few months in my classroom (in previous years) but we ultimately ended up donating them to friends. We wanted to start our own flock this year so we opted to buy day old chicks and will also be hatching more eggs soon for classroom purposes. Our plan is to keep the chicks we want and donate the rest but we hadn't planned on having a rooster in this first flock because we purchased all females from the hatchery. I appreciate all the insight you have offered thus far.It sound like this is your first experience with chickens and with 18 hens, you can be getting
16-18 eggs a day when they start laying and through early summer. If you planning of keeping these birds, long term, they will need a rest to molt (late summer) and get ready for laying in the spring.
If you're keeping your hens long term, rest/molt will help keep them in relatively good production for several years. On keeping a rooster, just remember that when you're hatching your own chicks, you're going to hatch chicks that will be "straight-run" about 50-50 male/female and you'll have to eat of sell your young roosters. Also, young birds you raise as "replacements" need to be introduced to the rest of your flock carefully without problems. If your flock is mostly free ranging it's not as big a deal. In hatching your own, another issue is artificial incubation, which there is a wide range of
learning curves to getting a good hatch. A broody hen and 8-10 eggs might be a useful way to start if you go the "raise your own" route, and the kids would really enjoy the experience. Good luck.
Phil