New to chickens and need lots of info

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Welcome!

For the breeds, I would suggest starting out with some of the online "chicken finders" to determine a good breed. A good example would be https://www.mypetchicken.com/chicken-breeds/which-breed-is-right-for-me.aspx and give it a heat-hardy yes due to your location. Beyond that, fill out any other traits that appeal to you, then pick out colors that you would enjoy seeing in your backyard each day.

As for the coop, I strongly suggest building one from scratch if you are handy. It will be a decent amount of work, but will likely be much better for both you and your chickens (and cheaper!). If you do go with a prefab coop, know that there is a decent amount of dishonesty in the coop market in how many chickens it can comfortably hold - my experience is take whatever number they advertise and cut that in half! As a general suggestion, you want 10 sq feet of run, 4 sq feet of coop and 10 inches of roostbar per chicken. Also you will want 1 nestbox per about 3-4 hens (but minimum of 3).
 
There are a lot of good dual purpose breeds which is what I prefer. Decent layers and decent meat. I have had barred rock and buffs. We are fairly new as well and just started incubating recently. I haven't had the opportunity to harvest mine for meat yet but they sure are nice birds that look hefty. I have some barred rock and some buff orpington.
 
GhostandMrChicken said:
My husband and I would like to start raising a few chickens for eggs and meat. We live in SW Florida. We have not purchased any so far. We are open for suggestions for types of breed and types of coops.
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We have just received our first chicks (9 females), they are a from a hatchery Murray Mcmurray out of Weber City IA. You should visit their web site at mcmurryhatchery.com. This is just one of many and for me very informative & helpful. I would suggest requesting a catalog which is loaded with facts and stories about people just like you and I, first timers. Additionally for coops yes you can build it yourself. I still have my drawings where I was going to build mine but time and material and then the trips back and forth to the box store. I chose a company which builds and ships a coop for you. They have several models to choose from with plenty of options. The company is Carolina Coops, which can be found at carolinacoops.com. I would suggest that you visit their web site and check out their coops. Bottom line this path worked for me, are there other options to choose you bet, just like your nose everyone has one. All I had hoped to do is offer you information. Good luck with your new endeavor. And welcome to BYC.
 

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