Thanks for all the info ya'll have provided to me so far! I had chickens as a boy until I was 18 and joined the Marines. Im now 47 and recently bought a house & 5 acres. It came with 35 grown chickens and 7 chicks that had just hatched. They had sold most of the game birds before this as only 1 albany and a couple full blooded game hens were in the bunch that we got. 2 of the chicks were a green leg hatch hen and a yellow leg hatch rooster I found out after a couple months. 6 of the chicks made it and they are about 13 weeks old now. We have some Americanas, buff orps, rir, black & red & gold stars, barred rock and 1 cuckoo maran. Since then I have bought a incubator and hatched 1 batch of 7 and had 2 hens go broody & hatch 10 more. 37 in the incubator now and a buff hen sitting on 12-15 eggs. I also bought some more chicks - silkies, americana, australop, naked neck, buff orp, black copper maran & cuckoo maran. Im up to 40 juvenile & chicks and 32 adults. 2 died right after I got them & I culled a lame hen. I decided to free range them so they all run around our 5 acres and after a few scuffles to establish the pecking order they all get along (I havent let the young hatch rooster out yet). The biggest challenge has been trying to figure out the housing situation as they are in a bunch of small coops and i want to get them in a bigger barn style with seperate roosting areas for each rooster -currently 6 adult roosters.
