How many chickens to start with?

[TripMomma]

I have my first chicks right now. We planned to start off with 4, then decided on 6...and now have 7 LOL. Too early to tell yet if any are roo's, I hope not. We are a family of 6. Brooder size, coop and run size, feed amount...and poop amount LOL...of any more than 10 kind of freaks me out.

 

[Cacique500]

We started with 5, and when they're firing on all cylinders it can be EGGcessive (see what I did there?!)

4 or 5 eggs a day for two people can make them pile up pretty quick...and you can only eat so many 8 egg omelettes.

Even giving some away we have plenty of eggs left over for a couple of people and the parrots (who LOVE eggs).

Our plan is to get 5 new chicks every 4 or 5 years when the other girls start to slow way down (or stop)...let the old ones live out their years in comfort while the new girls take over the breakfast production. Figure we should be able to rotate like that indefinitely.

It also depends what your plan is...ours are pets, so we try and give them a lot of individual time - more than 5 would be hard to "play with" individually. I've got two of them now that regularly try to jump up in my lap for a nap (usually at the same time)...that's a lot of chicken on you at one time.

I think the other benefit of starting with a smaller flock (especially if you're new to it) is being able to really watch what's going on with all the girls. We had one get sick recently and I noticed her behavior was "off" almost immediately. Started diagnosing and was able to get her back to normal in a few weeks. In a larger flock, or if you don't spend a lot of time with them, it might be significantly harder to spot and correct any issues.


Good luck with it!