Should I get chicks or ready to lay?

I'm quite the opposite! I've had great success with raising my own chicks and rather bad luck with buying mature birds. So, from my experience I highly recommend chicks. It's a lot of fun, too. If you're concerned with mixing breeds, just get chicks of one breed or purposefully find breeds that compliment each other. For example, Easter Eggers get along well with the Welsummer and Sussex breeds.

 

Welcome! I always raise chicks, either my own with broody hens, or hatchery day-olds. I also don't have sex-links, finding them pushy and feather pecking in my mixed flock. As SammyLee says, having birds who are likely to be compatible is best. The most economical production model is using high producing birds and replacing them at least every other year. In the right environment raising chicks works great, but you need the housing space to gradually mix the age groups safely. Mary

 

You know what? I recommend you continue with the flock management plan you had. Why? Because it appears your chicken keeping philosophy more closely resembles a commercial operation, though not in size, than a backyard flock which are both pets and food.

Backyard flocks are best started with baby chicks because they are much easier to groom as pets than older birds. Also, with backyard flocks, there usually isn't any urgency to get new stock to point of lay. Since you cull regularly and seem to place a high value on high productivity, this would indicate replacing your culled stock with point-of-lay stock would be the better choice for you.