New to chickens..any advice?

[joelawdawgjr]

We have decided this year we will try our luck at chickens!..our friends have chickens and we have been watching and learning from them!.. My question is what is the best kind of chicken to start out with?..any advice on being a new chicken owner will help! Thanks in advance!

 

[Julia62]

Welcome to the world of chickens! It's lots of fun. We are fairly new too. We started last summer with 10 week old pullets. I would recommend lots of reading here. I also read Raising Chickens for Dummies and it was great. We built or own coop and used a 10 x 10 dog run for the run.

If eggs are a priority for you then I would recommend reading the breed section and looking for the best layers and depending on your environment, which are cold hardy, etc.

We live in northern Nevada and we joke we have two seasons: winter and summer. We got a white Leghorn, Golden Comet, and 2 Silver Laced Wyandottes to start. We lost one Wyandotte to wry neck. The Golden Comet (Ginger) is the best layer we have and the friendliest and most funny girl! We just love her. The Leghorn (Mrs. Howell) is boss lady for sure. She set the pecking order. The SL Wyandotte (MaryAnn) was the late bloomer. Layed her first egg two months after the others started. And lays the smallest eggs and not daily. The other two might miss 1 or 2 eggs a month, even through the winter.

All that said, we got our first babies last weekend. We have 3 Easter eggers that are now 8 days old. SO fun! I was nervous about babies, but so glad we did it! My husband wanted green or blue eggs, so that's why we went with those.

You kind of just learn as you go (we changed roost height 3 times) and ask questions here. Everyone is so helpful. Especially when Tammy was sick, I got lots of help from people on how to care for her. Really helped a lot.