How Few is Too Few?

[LadyVictorian]

Here, in Maine, if the birds come from a feed store, the stores won't sell less than 6 at a time. How big is your coop? If you want to keep your numbers down, and you want to do the indoor brooding thing, you could get 2 silkies, and 1 or 2 LF chicks to brood. Have you looked at outdoor brooding options? https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/yes-you-certainly-can-brood-chicks-outdoors. I would go this route, and brood them right outside in the coop. They will feather out faster, have better social skills, (JMHO) and you will be spared the chicken dander in your home.

It's less of a coop and more of a barn. We are using our old foaling barn since we don't breed horses anymore. It has two 10x18 stalls in it. I would like to avoid raising them outside too as I live in MN and I have had friends in the past who raised them outside and had the power go out and woke up to 50 dead cornish cross chicks. It may have just been bad luck but I really don't want to risk my chicks if I don't have to and with MN weather despite the winter being surprisingly warm we have a record for dropping up to -40 in our winters with the windchills. Chicken dander isn't a big issue for me anyways. I keep a number of exotic animals in the house, rats who enjoy throwing litter all over the room, mice who smell to high hell, and lizards who work together in a set the crickets free foundation. Maybe the chickens can track those crickets down and I can finally get some sleep without Jimminy creeking in my ear all night long.

I also suggest a minimum or three when you get them from the breeder and for the same reason, if you get them early. Chickens are social animals and do a lot better if there are other chickens around. The odd are fairly good that you will keep all three but if one dies you still have two.

Why are you wanting to get the Silkie chicks early? You may have a good reason, but normally chicks the same age raised together get along great. I don’t want to raise too many alarms, many of us integrate new chicks a lot and don’t have problems but you will read of integration nightmares if you look long enough through this forum. Usually those problems are caused by space being too tight but maturity levels can be a big contributor.

No one can give you guarantees that you will or will not have problems no matter which way you go. If you can time it so all the chicks are the same age, I think things will go smoother for you if you get them all at the same age. And you can get as many Silkies as you want.

A question to consider. Will that breeder sex the chicks? Usually Silkies are bantam and most commercial hatcheries will not try to sex bantams. Are you OK with one or all of those Silkies being male?

I have talked to a few people who had silkies and other laying hens like Orpingtons and RIR and they have said it's best to have the silkies be older than the others or they will get picked on. I know for sure I want a few orpingtons and some easter eggers for sure.

I also have two stalls so if they do get picked on and worst comes to worst they can separate them up. I don't think I could ever time it to all the chickens being the same age though since when I get the Polish they will already be 6 months old. Unless I can get the chickens around the time the Polish hatch and then raise them but not sure I can avoid 6 months old chickens from not having mild panic attacks when they 6 month old stranger Polish show up. I would like to get the Polish as chicks but I want only hen's so the breeder said about 6 months is when you can be 100% what gender they are so I can't be getting Polish chicks for just hens.

The breeder does indeed sex the chickens but of course sexed will cost you a little more than straight run. Since it's harder to sex them it's not 100%. I know someone who got chickens from where I am getting mine wanted three hens and got 2 roo's but was able to go back and get 2 more hens the same age months later. I would be okay with one roo but probably not all three being roo's. I do have a small child who is currently 4 months old who will spend a lot of time at the farm and the more roosters means more chance for one to attack her. Having had roosters in the past they were perhaps one of the most evil and vile little creatures ever to set foot on this farm but they were meat birds so their personality didn't matter much in the long run. If they did end up being all roo's we would probably keep the friendliest one and give the others away.