Hi,
I'm new to the whole chicken scene as well, but i'll share my experience with you as i'v been in it for several months now, and went through what you're going through to some degree at the very sart.
On a whim without thinking i went out and bought 4 chickens, 1 baby barred rock, one baby black silkie and two rhode island reds. i was not ready for chickens, i had no food, no set up, nothing, i have no idea what i was doing, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. i brought them home, read, read, read, read, read and read some more, i live on an old farm, with an old barn, i got some chicken wire and transformed a room in the barn into a coop, gave them a roost, got some food, etc etc etc. took a couple days but they had a pretty good living area. both the hens seemed extremely out of place and didn't lay at all, after about two weeks, and no eggs i was getting frustrated with my own ability of raising chickens, and i was constantly improving their habitat. then one of the hens simply dropped dead right out of the blue, i walked in to check on them in the morning, she seemed a bit droopy, i placed her on the roost, she went to sleep, i left, came back a few hours later, she was still where i left her, i left came back again, and she was in the corner dead.... i was like woah, this is hard, the other hen look extremely unhappy too... i was about ready to throw in the towel, then i went back to the place i got the chicken, told them a little bit about what happened, they replaced the dead bird free of charge, while i was there looking at their setup, i thought maybe the area was too big for so few birds, so i decided to get two more hens in my last ditch effort to have chickens, while leaving my girlfriend pointed to a rooster, and how she liked it, i thought what the hell, lets get a rooster, and she picked one out we took them all home. it was like night and day, the hen we had there ran to the rooster and hung out with him for the next few days, the other three new hens were always happy as pie too, and they all started laying a couple days later. IMO, the rooster did the trick, my hens gravitate towards him, the security he gives them, he has made my coop an extremely relaxed place to be for them.
I'm not sure if you have a rooster, but i strongly encurage you to get one, the difference i saw in my coop without a rooster compare to one with a rooster was so extreme.
the only other time i was about to end my experience with chickens was when the racoons hit, they broke in one night and got both my babys, i was flipping mad, wasn;t even sure it was them at the time, the next night, they got in again, except this time they got a hen but i was on heavy guard duty, and caught them in the coop, over 20 racoons..... this was not a good feeling, standing in a coop with 20 racoons, some were in the water, some were sniffing the ground and none seemed to care i just showed up, i did make them care as i was extremely ****** off in my over protective mood, even if having that many around seemed a little iffy for me to be around. the next night, after securing the coop a lot more than it was, the worst thing i could imagine happened, i walked in and only the rooster was there, he was motionless against a all, i don't think i've been so ****** off in ages or since, all my chickens were dead, i failed to protect them, i failed everything with chcikens, i was ****** off at myself, ****** off at the racoons.... i walked over to the dead rooster to get rid of the body so the racoons wouldn;t get to eat it afer killing it, and its head popped up and looked at me, he then stood up, stretched a little and started walking around, my mouth kinda dropped, totally thought he was dead, but now all i ahve is a rooster, and i still suck at raising chickens, im happy he survived, but i have no eggs, i have no other animals but a lonely chicken, i wanted revenge in the worst way, i was determind to kill all racoons in my barn, as they killed all my hens. i first grabbed a pitchfork, and went hunting, there were so many they were easy to find, i didn;t want to hurt them, or wound them, i wanted to kill them, so i got a better weapon, a gun, went back to the barn, and again, the same issue, i could easily shoot them, but they were scared and my only option was to hurt or wound, so i opted out and went back to the house to sulk. after sulking a bit, i decided to check on the rooster, and figure out what to do, he was acting weird, clucking like mad, staring down a "hole" i shovel waste to the lower level of the barn from their pen (racoons have no way of using this access point), almost seemed like he wanted to jump, to me it looked like a wishful suicide attempt, i started walking over to him, looked down the hole and there she was SMOOCHY! one of the hens, named smoochy because her beak looks like puckerd lips, i ran down and grabbed her, i was happy she survived, she was one of the three who had a name, dave the rooster, strawberry who would do anything to have a strawberry and smoochy. ok i thought, smoochy is alive, this is amazing news, i'll make this racoon proof today, i have to, if it kills me, i went back to the house to gather more info on keeping racoons out, when out in the yard and of all the birds, strawberry was clucking away, alone beside the combine a little confused about where she was, most likly hoping to run into a stray patch of strawberries that probably exists somewhere close if she only looks hard enough. i went grabbed her, and put her with the other two... i then fixed up the coop, and it has been racoon proof ever since, smoochy and strawberry never stoped laying the whole time either, i have also expanded my asortment of chickens a fair bit aswell.
i now have a dog too, which is useless, smoochy and strawberry both pick on her, my dog always follows me to the coop, at first i let her in with me, but strawberry and smoochy just don't like it, they fluff up and chase my dog around, so i simply stopped letting the dog in with me, chickens are hilarious.
all in all, it's a learning experience, and there's nothing better than waking up, feeding the chickens and getting some food yourself in exchange.
