Starting a Mixed Flock -- What should I know first?

[Xiao Casa]

From what you guys are saying, it seems like a mixed flock is little different from a single-breed flock. With that in mind, I'm going to go for it and will probably order the chicks today! They won't come for a few weeks, though, so there should be plenty of time to finish the coop and run first.

donrae, I hadn't heard of the 4sq. ft. per bird in the coop rule before. I knew the 10sq. ft. per bird in the run, but I thought it was 2 sq. ft. in the coop, so that is what I planned for. The coop was going to be 3×5, or 15 sq. ft., for 6 hens. 2 sq. ft. with a bit of extra. Is this not sufficient?

 

[ochochicas]

I LOVE having a mixed flock. I can look out at the birds and see who is who. We have some black ausralorps that all look alike. If one of them stopped laying or got sick, I probably wouldn't know which one it was.

My favorites are the red sex links. They are friendly and very good layers - nice big eggs, and a lot of them. I also like my Plymouth Rocks. They are friendly but can be a bit more vocal than some of the other birds. The only hen I don't like is the Rhodebar we got. She lays tiny eggs (compared to the others) and she is not friendly at all. Since we got her as an adult I'm not sure if it is the breeding or how she was raised.

We only ended up with one Easter Egger since the others were roosters and we rehomed them. I like them because they are beautiful and come in all different colors. I found that ours didn't really like the other chickens and only wanted to hang out with other EEs. Now that we just have one, she sleeps by herself. She isn't very friendly but is coming around more as she gets older.

 

[preschoolchicks]

One thing to remember is that, even if you are getting chicks all the same age now, you may need to introduce some later to replace some (as I did). If you plan now for an isolation pen in case of illness or needing to separate ages, you will be glad you did, I guarantee it!
I currently have one of each of these birds: Welsummer, Australorp, Barred Rock, EE, Buff Orpington, Swedish Flower, and Cream Legbar. They are not all together yet as some are still chicks but I think it will work just fine.

 

[savannahm0m]

The main thing with a mixed flock is that they are all similar ages. We have two stages in our flock, 5 older birds and 5 younger birds. They all tolerate each other, but they definitely "hang out" with their own brooder mates. The older girls will chase the younger ones off from special treats, but as of now, there has been no blood drawn. Mainly make sure they have enough space. I don't know how much available space you have, but we have about 70 feet in our run (if my calculations are correct!!!!).

I messed up my calculations! My run is 20 ft X 10.5 ft. Which is way more than I figured up...maybe I should go back to school for math! I meant to say we used 7 10ft panels (so 70 linear feet around)

 

[Xiao Casa]

Okay, we marked out what we thought was a good area for the run -- then measured it and found out that it was 8×12 -- which we later increased to 8×16 so we can frame the bottom with 8ft landscape boards. Well, at least they'll have plenty of space, and with our yard it doesn't matter much that they are getting MORE than twice the "minimum" square footage per bird. I'm sure they won't mind a bit, especially since ours won't free range much (maybe a couple of supervised hours a day, not much more).

After all, bigger is better, right? (I hope...)