Starting flock in North Florida

LovingDucks

In the Brooder
Dec 17, 2018
2
3
42
I acquired 4 baby chicks from our Ag Teacher at school, and I am looking to add a couple of chickens to my flock

My current chicks are roughly 2 weeks old, and are suppose to be silver laced wyandotte crossed with Ameraucana. I plan on keeping the two friendliest that are hens and selling or eating the other two. I want a flock with variety. My goal is to have about 6-8 chickens total in a covered chicken run that is roughly 30ft x 15ft. Their coop will be 4ft x 8ft x 6ft that will be attached to the run. Basically the area under this ancient grape vine trellis in the backyard.

I really love silkies, and would like to add one or two. They are cute, friendly, and broody. I am not sure what to get for the other 3-4 chickens. I live in NE Fl. I am looking for chickens with good egg laying, friendly (not bully the silkies), great foragers, and not obnoxiously loud.

I should add that I kept my current 4 chicks in my classroom where my students handled them every single day. They came home with me today permanently.Any chicks I get will live a week or two in my classroom for my students to enjoy and me to base my lessons on.

I currently have 4 wonderful ducks who are laying great, but my husband turns out to be allergic to duck eggs. Hence the interest in getting some chickens. Ducks live in a pen under my fruit orchard.

Thank you ahead of time for your input.

Here are two pictures of my current chicks:
 

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I'm not right in your neck of the woods, I'm central Florida, but I have had chickens here for my entire life. Keep in mind any roosters you get will crow and if you have multiple boys, or if you have any neighbour's with roos they will crow back and forth basically saying this is my property.

Roosters will crow in the morning, noon, night, when the porch light comes on in middle of night, when the wind blows and any other possible moment. I don't mind all the crowing, I have multiple roosters, my neighbors/relatives behind me have one or two, the neighbors (not close) to the left have a few that I can hear sometimes.

I wouldn't say any singular breed is quiet. Any hen makes a egg song after laying an egg. The egg song can be much louder than roosters crowing, imagination 30+ chickens all calling at the same time. It's the loudest natural thing I've ever heard personally. Each chicken is different so you could have multiple hens of the same breed and one is just obnoxiously loud over any little thing, just like one could be silent for the most part. Maybe someone else has more info on quiet breeds that I'm not aware of.

As for egg layers you can go with many breeds. Rhode Island Red, Plymouth Rock (Barred Rock), Leghorn, hybrid (like a
Golden Comet), Sussex and the list just keeps going. I also like Easter Eggers or if you're willing to pay up with a Reputable breeder, Ameraucanas. Good colored egg production and who could resist such a cute beard? I'm sure you know how cute these guys are already!

Photo Editor-20181017_122642.jpg


Just about any breed short of a Broiler will forage given the opportunity. The friendly part is hit or miss for any breed. Any breed you could name has a horror story from someone. A bird being mean to you or any other chicken could happen, every flock has a pecking order and you are in it. Some chickens take pecking order too far and get aggressive with you and injure other chickens. You have to put that chicken in its place this is the thread you can go to if this ever happens to you:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/my-chicken-is-a-bully.1281922/

I hope I've been at least a little help to you!
 
My favorite hen is my Buff Orp, but my favorite breed is my Salmon Faverolles. They are adorable-looking, with their feathered feet and fluffy faces, and they are definitely docile. Camille and Celeste ALWAYS do a submissive squat when I pick them up, and I have raised them since there were about two days old. Also, they live with the Orp and always defer to her, whatever the circumstance. I won't tell you they don't sing a lively egg song, because they are quite proud of their work.

I don't do supplemental lighting in winter because I think everyone needs a break. One of my Favs continues to faithfully lay about five eggs a week while all the other hens and the runner ducks are taking a winter vacation.

It's a shame your husband is allergic to duck eggs; they are soooo lovely. One of my runners lays beautiful greenish eggs, all the others lay white.

Love your babies' pictures!! Welcome to BYC!
 
Personally I love amberlinks because they are docile and lay tons of eggs!

Another hybrid breed. They are part of the ISA Brown family, hybrids are great for egg production. I've never had a amberlink so I'll have to take your word on friendliness. The red sexlink I had was nice enough, she was really curious and could be friendly. She also layed the biggest eggs I've ever seen. Like the size of a double yolker with only one yolk. I felt bad for the poor girl every time she layed such large eggs, witch was often. I believe most hybrid breeds such as a ISA Browns have a shorter life span, so take that into consideration too.
 
I want a flock with variety. My goal is to have about 6-8 chickens total in a covered chicken run that is roughly 30ft x 15ft. Their coop will be 4ft x 8ft x 6ft that will be attached to the run.

I really love silkies, and would like to add one or two. They are cute, friendly, and broody. I am not sure what to get for the other 3-4 chickens. I live in NE Fl. I am looking for chickens with good egg laying, friendly (not bully the silkies), great foragers, and not obnoxiously loud.

Since you are happy Silkies go broody, does this mean you are going to be keeping a rooster so you can hatch your eggs or will you get fertile eggs from another source? You have the room for that as long as you limit your hatching and have a plan to get rid of the excess males and females. You might find that coop small for that though. I have a shelter in my run to house a broody and her chicks when my main coop is overcrowded. You may wind up with housing issues. Designing to the minimum doesn't leave you any flexibility.

One of the problems in trying to go by breed to meet your goals is that you will not have enough for averages to mean anything. You can find individuals of any breed that pretty much meet your goals but you can also find individuals of any of those breeds that meet none of your goals. If you only have a few it's pure luck which of those you get. You can look through Henderson's Breed Chart to try to determine which breeds have tendencies that lean toward what you want and them go to Feathersite to see what they look like to try to improve your chances but it is pure luck what you actually get.

Henderson’s Breed Chart

http://www.sagehenfarmlodi.com/chooks/chooks.html

Feathersite

http://www.feathersite.com/Poultry/BRKPoultryPage.html#Chickens

One of the issues you have is that you only want another more six chicks max. It can be really challenging to get that few from a hatchery and a feed store is unlikely to have all the breeds you want. Anther issue is that Silkies are bantam. Very few hatcheries even try to sex bantam chicks, they are just too small. My suggestion is to look at MyPetChicken. They do not hatch the chicks themselves but gather the chicks you want from hatcheries. They have a good reputation for customer service and they try to sex bantams.

Another possibility is to find your state thread in the "Where am I? Where are you!" section of this forum and chat with your neighbors. You may find someone that has what you want or they may be willing to split an order with you. You still may get unwanted cockerels but maybe you can find someone that will take you unwanted males.

What you are talking about is doable but you've set yourself some challenges. I applaud you for what you are doing in the classroom. That is fabulous. And welcome to the forum, glad you found us.
 

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