New to chickens

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Welcome to BYC! Please make yourself at home and we are here to help.

My chickens are part of the family too! So sweet and affectionate with wonderful, distinct personalities!
 











this is a few of my flock (the ones who were still enough to not make a blurry photo), lol, the first pic i think is a leghorn, but it looks sort of like a welsummer too i am confused as to what she is, and the lavender one i can't tell what it is either , but i think i have a pair of them, one has waddles and one doesn't., I'm pretty sure the smaller blue cochin is a rooster, he's smaller because he's 30 days younger then my other blue cochin , sorry if the pics are weird, i am not a great taker of photo's, lol and the one with my dog was taken at 7 am on a misty monday morning

if the pictures actually work, let me know what you guys think of my babies :)
 
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Welcome to BYC!

You will find a lot of good information here. Keep on asking questions and you will get many good answers.

You may also want to read the FAQ below.

Your chickens look beautiful.

The first picture is a Light Brown Leghorn. Its earlobe is white. Welsummers have red or brown ears. Otherwise they look very similar.
 
Does that mean since she's a leghorn, she will be laying eggs first, because i think all my other chickens are "slower" breeds, or i think they mature slower anyways like my cochins, and jersey giants, and orpingtons, i think she's 3 months old, i have a nest box thing in the coop but it's got no straw in it, i should prolly put stuff in there soon though, i had no idea what i was doing, so i ended up buying so many different breeds, i am not sure thats a good thing or not, unless i build a bunch of seperate mini coops i'll have quite a lot of mixed breeds going on next year, i will have to build that spangled hamberg something, poor little guy, if he wasnt so fast the other ones would prolly pick on him more i think, luckily i have 25 acres to work with , so i could build them big pens if i want to keep the breeds pure i guess, i do love the blue Cochin breed, so i was lucky to get a random blue cochin rooster with the last order, i just orderd 5 random roosters, lol, i was going "eat" them, but it's to late for that i don't think i can do it now, lol i'm such a whimp, sooo thats why i have 29 hens and 5 roosters now, i suppose like people sugested i could offer them to homes for people that need rooster pets.

also, do you guys have trouble walking around your chickens? they seem to run right under your feet, i've taken to shuffling my feet so i dont break any of them, but it looks silly, all of my farm cats were totally baffled by the chickens, i'm sure they would like to eat one, but they seem wary, which is good, lol, my bigger hen, the one thats currently in charge, made a really weird call when she saw a kitten lurking on a bush they were eating berries off of, all my chickens ran away form the bush but her big hen, and she stayed until everyone was away from the bush, (making that loud call the entire time) and then she took off too, do hens do that , or am i confusing a hen with a rooster? she seems to have no waddles and her comb is still yellow, all the other ones i think are roosters have big waddles and combs and they are bright red, but she is a light brhama or howver you spell that, she's really big too, bigger then the blue Cochin i got at the same time, lol
 
So..i was wondering how do you know if your chickens are growing properly? my chickens free range on a 20 acres so ..i assume they would be slightly smaller then a penned up hen since they will likely have a lot less fat on them because of the running and flying around all day, i got my first set of chickens on the 3'rd of June, and the second batch of them on the 23'rd but i have no idea what size they should actually be, they seem all very healthy, no poop butts or anything, i did notice my chickens seem to have very runny poop , i am not sure if it's their diet or what, they eat grass, and whatever else they find i see them getting the big zucchini's we forgot about in the garden, maybe they are eating to much wet grass, and vegetables , and then i feed them this "layer" food from a 50# bag i get at TSC . they all seem happy and healthy though, no paleness or listless actions, they are all very exited to be let out of the coop lol, i love my chickens.

so yea sorry i got off track, how can you tell if your feeding them right? i am going thru about 70#'s of feed a month, for 34 chickens +whatever they eat in the fields and woods.(the really like the woods though must be juicier stuff in there)so far i've seen them eat mice, toads, and baby birds! chickens are voracious predators, i had no idea...

any help or ideas would be awesome, i want happy chickens, because i love them.
 

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