1. Give them lots of space. Twice what you'll think they need. Crowded birds are stressed birds. Stressed birds are more prone to illness, parasites, and behavioral issues. Read the link in Ridgerunner's sig line. Then read it again
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2. Don't get a rooster unless you're familiar with animal behavior, livestock in particular. Evaluate yourself and your personality. If you have a hard time getting your kiddos or your genial, people pleasing retriever to mind you, nix the rooster and start with an all hen flock. Keep those hens for a year or so, then if you decide you want a rooster get a young bird and let your hens teach him some manners and grow him up right. If you're familiar with livestock already, or have an assertive enough personality you can deal with a possibly aggressive animal, skip this advice.
3. Don't feed layer feed. Start them on starter (medicated or not, do your research and decide for yourself) then switch to grower or all-flock or something similar and keep them on that. Most back yard folks give treats that lower the protein of the feed, and layer already has the absolute bare minimum needed for most birds to produce. When they start laying, give them their own egg shells and/or oyster shell for calcium supplements.
4. Don't coddle your birds. Yes, folks like to treat them as pets, but they're historically livestock. They can tolerate a range of temperatures, especially cold (when they're adults). Chickens have been living outside without electricity for many years and have done just fine. Be sure they have a good shelter, out of the wind and rain, and don't worry about how cold they are. DO have enough air flow/ventilation in your coop. Folks tend to want to box the birds up and insulate them. Birds generate a lot of moisture at night with their poop and their breathing and all that moisture needs a way to escape the coop.
5. Don't be afraid to change things up. If you start with sand and don't like it, try deep litter. If you start with sex links and just don't like something about them, sell them and buy another breed. If you have one hen that's causing upheaval in the flock, sell her. If your birds aren't shiny and healthy looking and productive, change feeds. Folks tend to think keeping chickens is a "pick one thing and stick with it forever" kind of thing, it's not. It's much more fluid. I've changed so many things about my management, breeds, reasons for keeping birds, etc over the last 20+ years it's not even funny....and I'm still changing!
lol maybe streaming video 
