Sorry about your bad luck.
I have a suggestion...if you're looking for good egg layers, have you thought of getting hybrid sex-link chicks? They are easily identifiable by their color when they are first hatched and there is no mistaking which ones are roos and which are pullets. I have 4 Golden Comet sex-link pullets and 2 Black Sex-Link pullets and they lay the very best/most/biggest eggs of all the chickens I have and I knew from the very beginning that they were all girls! They are all very friendly and were easy to get attached to. When I first got my chicks, I ended up getting attached to a couple who turned out to be roos and I had to re-home them.
With the sex-links, at least you know you're not getting attached to chickens you can't keep. I can't have roos in town.
I know your frustration at trying to figure out how much space you need by reading books! I have quite a few chicken books and they all say something different. Everything from 1.5 sq. ft. per bird to 10 sq. feet!! It's tough to figure it all out. We had 11 chickens in a coop that gave them about 3 sq. ft. per bird. They were a bit too crowded, so we made a small coop that I can eventually use as a brooder coop that our three youngest pullets live in. Now they all have about 4 sq. ft. per bird and it works a lot better. Living in town we have very limited space. We also have two chicken tractors (run out pens) so they can get outside on nice days and be safe from the predators we have around here...mostly hawks and stray dogs during the day. Being able to get outside and have a change of scenery helps the chickens frame of mind a lot too.
I have a suggestion...if you're looking for good egg layers, have you thought of getting hybrid sex-link chicks? They are easily identifiable by their color when they are first hatched and there is no mistaking which ones are roos and which are pullets. I have 4 Golden Comet sex-link pullets and 2 Black Sex-Link pullets and they lay the very best/most/biggest eggs of all the chickens I have and I knew from the very beginning that they were all girls! They are all very friendly and were easy to get attached to. When I first got my chicks, I ended up getting attached to a couple who turned out to be roos and I had to re-home them.
I know your frustration at trying to figure out how much space you need by reading books! I have quite a few chicken books and they all say something different. Everything from 1.5 sq. ft. per bird to 10 sq. feet!! It's tough to figure it all out. We had 11 chickens in a coop that gave them about 3 sq. ft. per bird. They were a bit too crowded, so we made a small coop that I can eventually use as a brooder coop that our three youngest pullets live in. Now they all have about 4 sq. ft. per bird and it works a lot better. Living in town we have very limited space. We also have two chicken tractors (run out pens) so they can get outside on nice days and be safe from the predators we have around here...mostly hawks and stray dogs during the day. Being able to get outside and have a change of scenery helps the chickens frame of mind a lot too.