Number of chicks to get started

[cackle]

I started with 15 got 4 silkies. Silkies hatched 6 I hatched 20. So until I rehome the roos I have 45... Wow. I think I need more chicks.

 

[Mahonri]

I'm 11 over the limit at present.

Hope I can keep it that way.

 

[Rock Wyandotte]

Hi Holly,
I started last year with 8. Predators got 2 in the fall and a good neighbor got one as a gift. I still have 5 of my originals and now have 25 - 4 week old chicks and 1 that just hatched in my incubator! I think 6 - 8 is a great number to start out with.

 

[Crickett]

Well, I'm new to it too, but I originally only planned on getting 5. 4 hens and a roo. But I ended up with 10, mainly because they are so darn cute!

 

[wings]

START WITH SIX!

You will find that they are a nice manageable number.

Also, you will have enough space to satisfy your chick cravings when you feel you need to get more chicks next year (which you will). The smaller you start, the more space you have to expand.

Also, if you get FEWER than 6, you might lose a majority of your flock to things like diseases, prolapse, and predators. SORRY IF I SCARED YOU!

 

[the_great_snag]

I might be a wet blanket, but I think you should start with a very small bunch and make sure you enjoy chicken keeping before you get into it on a larger scale.

They do require a commitment of time, money, and care, and you should make sure you enjoy the responsibilities as well as the rewards of it while it's still a small scale hobby undertaking.

If you should decide not to stay with the hobby, you can easily sell or butcher your birds, or at least give them away. It might be harder if you have a large flock on your hands and find it to be too much for you.

Also, without knowing what aspect of chicken keeping you are interested in it's hard to advise you much more. Generally, if you want meat birds or layers I would still advise getting from 3 to 6 birds. This way you should end up with at least 2 healthy birds, and hopefully pullets if you buy sexed chicks. That would only matter if you aren't raising meat birds or have issues with keeping roosters, but I ramble on...

Personally, I am planning to get into incubating and hatching my own chicks, but I bought 4 broiler chicks the other day to kind of ease myself back into chicken keeping. So far the birds are doing great and have reaffirmed my lifelong love of chicken keeping.

These little guys will hopefully make for a few great chicken dinners this summer.

My sister and I are also planning to buy about 100 broilers to keep at her place!

 

[felidaet]

I am new to chicken raising as well. When we started talking about raising chickens a few months ago we were thinking about raising 4 - 6. I picked up the last of my chicks a couple of days ago. I have 18 in the brooder now. Luckily I built my coop large enough to handle this many (but no more).

 

[Busymama]

I wanted about 4 silkie pullets but they were impossible to find anywhere locally. I dove into an assorted bantam bin and somehow ended up with 12 assorted chicklets, 5 are some sort of silkie.

I don't know how many are roos yet, but I am hoping for at least 4 or 5 females total. Maybe 6 or 8 would be good, too.

My friend told me to get twice as many as you want because there wasn't any way to know which were pullets.

I am secretly hoping they're all girls because I'm in love with ALL of them now. The hubby wouldn't be too keen on that idea, though. But I'll be keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[kyeschicks]

Quote:
glad to hear that

 

[LovinMyPeeps]

I started out with 8... the number seems to double exponentially each week... so you may want to avoid feed stores... I now have 14... soon to be 20.. sigh... I love my chicks! Fuzzy butts are sooooo addicting...