Many of us love the idea of having chickens for eggs and meat. I do myself. My advice is to work into it. Right now, it sounds like you have a new flock of chicks, a couple of months old.
A coop (chicken house) needs 4 square feet per bird - so if the 10 x 26 is a coop, well you can have 65 birds. It would be a large barn.
If your run (the outside fenced area to protect from predator) if that is the 26 x10, well you would be maxed out at 26 birds. It is recommend to have 10 sq feet per bird in a run.
Another problem is, chicks are pretty small, and what seems like an enormous amount of space, rapidly becomes no where near enough space in a short 5 months when they all get full grown. Crowded chickens have horrible problems of pecking, feather eating, pecking holes in each other. That is our concern.
Everyone does this there own way. Good luck. Personally, if asked, I recommend a hen only flock the first year. Pullets really should not be exposed to a cockerel without older hens until they are laying, around 5-6 months of age. One should not hatch pullet eggs, they just really are not big enough. It is better to hatch eggs from birds 8 months old+.
I recommend setting up a second coop/run and putting the cockerels in there soon. Now they are at the darling stage, they are brave and probably eat out of your hand. They are rapidly approaching the nightmare stage where hormones take over. Then you could butcher these boys for meat. If you are raising for eggs and meat - a second coop is beyond helpful.
Keep your hens for eggs for the first year, then add some roosters. Just because you got these three roosters by the luck of the draw, that is not reason to keep them for breeding. A lot of cockerels should not be used for breeding. But when you want to add roosters, you can get roosters easily. They are free to very cheap. Then begin hatching and keeping layers and birds to be harvested next year.
IMO, you have years to do this hobby, no need to do it all at once.
Mrs K
A coop (chicken house) needs 4 square feet per bird - so if the 10 x 26 is a coop, well you can have 65 birds. It would be a large barn.
If your run (the outside fenced area to protect from predator) if that is the 26 x10, well you would be maxed out at 26 birds. It is recommend to have 10 sq feet per bird in a run.
Another problem is, chicks are pretty small, and what seems like an enormous amount of space, rapidly becomes no where near enough space in a short 5 months when they all get full grown. Crowded chickens have horrible problems of pecking, feather eating, pecking holes in each other. That is our concern.
Everyone does this there own way. Good luck. Personally, if asked, I recommend a hen only flock the first year. Pullets really should not be exposed to a cockerel without older hens until they are laying, around 5-6 months of age. One should not hatch pullet eggs, they just really are not big enough. It is better to hatch eggs from birds 8 months old+.
I recommend setting up a second coop/run and putting the cockerels in there soon. Now they are at the darling stage, they are brave and probably eat out of your hand. They are rapidly approaching the nightmare stage where hormones take over. Then you could butcher these boys for meat. If you are raising for eggs and meat - a second coop is beyond helpful.
Keep your hens for eggs for the first year, then add some roosters. Just because you got these three roosters by the luck of the draw, that is not reason to keep them for breeding. A lot of cockerels should not be used for breeding. But when you want to add roosters, you can get roosters easily. They are free to very cheap. Then begin hatching and keeping layers and birds to be harvested next year.
IMO, you have years to do this hobby, no need to do it all at once.
Mrs K
