I have plenty of room but would like to keep the chickens contained, mainly for their safety. Do I need to fence an area in? I've read about chicken runs and chicken tractors, however I'm not sure what they are.
There are many different models for how people keep chickens. Some people just let them roam wild and sleep in trees. Some build a coop and run and keep them tightly contained. Many are going to be somewhere in between. A lot of that depends on room but also predator pressure.
A coop is a building that normally has roosts where the chickens sleep and nests where they lay. A coop can be anything from a tiny building up on stilts to a huge walk-in building. People may or may not feed and water in there. Since most predators are more active at night and people are usually not stirring around to help keep predators frightened away, the highest risk from predators is at night, so many people lock them in a predator-proof coop overnight. Many people think that predators are only active at night, but that is not the case. Foxes, dogs, coyotes, hawks, raccoons, skunks, bobcats, and many others will hunt during the day. The risk is greater at night though.
A run is a fenced area where the chickens can go during the day. It gives them protection from predators but is usually not as safe as a coop. The bigger it is the harder it is to make it truly predator proof. The other advantage to a run is that it keeps the chickens contained. That’s quite handy in the city to keep them out of the street and off neighbor’s property, but it also keeps them out of your garden. And there are times where you might find it useful to keep the chickens contained. Even if you don’t normally keep them contained a run gives you flexibility in how you handle them.
Growing up in the ridges of East Tennessee many decades ago a few miles from not much, my parents and many of the neighbors kept chickens that were not confined during the day. Most had coops or chicken houses where most of the chickens slept at night, but some slept in trees or open barns. We’d often go years between predator attacks, but a dog or fox might show up and have to be dealt with. Predator pressure really wasn’t too bad. But where some people are, their entire flock could be wiped out the first time they tried something like that.
A tractor is a specialized coop/run. It is generally small enough to be portable and is totally enclosed. The chickens can graze on grass then you move it to fresh grass. If you don’t move it pretty regularly, the ground underneath becomes a quagmire of chicken poop and can really stink, especially if it rains a bunch. Some people move theirs twice a day, though others can go longer between moves. Tractors require a commitment to move them when you need to.
What breed of chicken would be best for a beginner. One that lays 3-4 eggs a week but is also friendly around little kids.
Some people really get hung up on breeds. People tend to really like the breed they have, even if they have never had any other to compare to. Practically any breed will work for you, or even a flock of mixed-breed backyard chickens. Breeds do have tendencies but you have to have a lot for averages to mean much. Each chicken is an individual and can have many traits not common for that breed.
How do you determine what breed you want? First you need to decide what traits you want in chickens. It’s hard to get what you want if you don’t know what you want. This may actually be the hardest thing about the entire process. But at the end of the day, the things you agonized about the most are probably not the important ones. It’s the not knowing that is the hardest.
You could look through Henderson’s Breed Chart to see general tendencies and characteristics, then go to Feathersite to get some good photos.
Henderson’s Breed Chart
http://www.sagehenfarmlodi.com/chooks/chooks.html
Feathersite
http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKPoultryPage.html#Chickens
You could go to an online website and use a breed selection tool.
http://www.mypetchicken.com/chicken-breeds/which-breed-is-right-for-me.aspx
http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/chick_selector.html
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/316042/new-feature-breed-selection-tool-search-tool
Your oldest son may or may not be old enough for 4H. You could talk to your parish extension agent about the local 4H program and maybe get started in that. Some people are pretty passionate about their chickens and will love to talk and educate.
I figured on 4 hens, do I need a rooster too? I would guess so, I remember that birds and the bees talk with my dad
The only reason you need a rooster is if you want fertile eggs. Anything else is just personal preference. Many flocks without any roosters are quite happy flocks. It sounds like you want to use chickens as an educational tool. It also sounds like you want to raise some for meat. You can always buy chicks but you probably do want a rooster to hatch your own. There can be some issues with this.
Some people will tell you that it is a disaster waiting to happen to have a rooster around small kids. You are dealing with living animals so no one can give you any guarantees, but for thousands of years people have kept flocks with roosters on a small farm where small kids were growing up.
Not all hens go broody. Actually few hatchery hens do though some breeds have more of a tendency to go broody than others. That does not mean that all hens of that breed go broody, just that they are more likely to. Remember living animals don’t come with guarantees. Going broody means that her hormones cause her to want to be a mommy. She quits laying eggs, sets on eggs to hatch them, and then raises the chicks. You cannot cause a hen to go broody and you certainly cannot control when a hen goes broody. You may need to buy an incubator and hatch them yourself, which creates a whole lot more opportunities for education.
If your kids clean fish or skin rabbits, or see you doing that, and you are up-front with them from the first about your intentions with the chickens, they can usually handle the butchering and eating part really well. Maybe they will want to know what a gizzard or liver looks like. But if you spring a surprise and suddenly want to eat their pet, they can often have a problem with that. They are your kids but it sounds like you have a good relationship with them.
Where you are you don’t have to worry about cold weather at all. Chickens can handle any cold weather you will ever see down there but heat can kill them. You need a coop with lots of ventilation and they need plenty of shade. You will get plenty of rain down there. A wet coop or run is a dangerous coop or run, a breeding ground for disease. When the weather sets in wet it is real hard to keep any decent sized run dry, but this article may help you in your design.
Pat’s Big Ol' Mud Page (fixing muddy runs):
https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=1642-fix-a-muddy-run
You might follow the link in my signature for my thoughts on space. Plan for the future in how many you may eventually have. In general, the tighter I crowd them, the more behavioral problems I have, the harder I have to work, and the less flexibility I have in dealing with problems.
Good luck and welcome to the adventure.
My two loves which I got knowing nothing about chickens but wanted 2 hens for eggs ended up being roos ... conformation of this last week when they started crowing (4 months 2 weeks old) but I wouldn't trade them for the world they are loving and so fun!!!
