This is a fascinating thread. I have limited time and energy so I’m not (yet) embarking on a breeding program, but I am fascinated by the idea of having chickens that can mostly fend for themselves. My son has a couple acres or so and there is a feral flock of guineas who roam through. Since he's started working on his food forest, with brush pile berms and a pond he is hand-digging, the guineas have been regularly laying clutches of eggs on his land. My situation is very different - I have a decent bit of land (32 acres) but it is almost all wooded and very steep rising up about 500 feet in elevation on all sides. So things like chicken tractors are not an option. I have what I hope is a secure coop/run and also want to do free-ranging, in spite of a high predator load. Until just now, I hadn't thought outside the box of hatchery chicks, and primarily selected for egg-laying, easy temperament and both cold and heat hardiness. What I have now is one each of Calico Princess, Cinnamon Queen, Black Sex-link, California Tan, Blue laced gold Wyandotte, Cream legbar, Starlight Green egger, Easter egger, Ameraucana, Barred Plymouth Rock, Buff Orpington and Speckled Sussex. They range from 9 days to 7 weeks, so young. One (the Calico princess) may or may not be a cockerel. If not, I can imagine down the line wanting a rooster to help protect them when they are out and about. I plan to keep following this as I gain comfort in keeping chickens and consider letting hens brood eggs on their own. All that said, I looked at the Greenfire website and I'm jonesing for an Icelandic chicken. If only because Íslenska landnámshæna is just so damn fun to say.
Right now I have a huge chicken tractor but eventually that will go wherever the garden is and we will be converting an outbuilding to a coop. Which I might use for chickens or guineas who can’t be trusted not to die sleeping elsewhere at night. We also have a big barn so the possibilities are endless. But I really don’t like the fuss of day-old chicks. I feel like I am constantly hovering over them. I do check on mamas with chicks but somehow even when that goes horribly wrong it stresses me out less.
