How many chicks for a first try?

[d000hg]

We've been thinking chickens as we prepare to move into the country and my wife's school just hatched some eggs... From some company, you can keep the chicks or return them. She's fallen in love with this batch do we figured we'd go for it, by the time they're growing up we'll have moved.

But how many is a good number for a first foray into chickens? 1? 3? 5? 10?

[veggiechicken]

Do you know whether the chicks are girls or boys?

[d000hg]

Not yet. Is it easy to tell... If not I guess when they come to collect them we can get them to pick out some females.

[veggiechicken]

Depends on the breed. Some are colour coded! You definitely don't want to have a load of cockerels.

[Nicos]

I agree with VC.
Unless you are prepared to cull any boys when they are older then you need to be absolutely sure you only have girls.
Unless they are from a breed where you can tell for sure as chicks, you often can't tell until they are 3/4/5 months old, or begin to crow!
Cockerels are near enough as impossible to rehome.

What sort of space will you be able to dedicate to the chooks...that's going to be a limiting factor.
A minimum of 3 I'd say, maybe 4-5 ?...they are flock birds and need to be in groups.
How many eggs a week might you use?

Lots to consider....

[Darwin.]

I just started keeping chickens a month ago, I decided on four and a rooster. The coop I got holds 8 so I figured I'd stop at that. Then I wanted brown eggs, white eggs and little bantam eggs so built a new coop and ended up with 10. The new coop will hold at least 8 and the bantams need their own rooster so tonight I'm collecting 3 more bantams, one of them is a rooster. That's 13 and I'm done.

Although I do like Wynadottes so one of those would be nice, green eggs would be good too so that's another one. 13 is unlucky too. I think you need to get 15 just to be safe.

[d000hg]

Thanks all.

Silly question perhaps but... can you eat the birds? If so at what age? I was just thinking that if we ended up with additional roosters we could solve the problem that way, assuming we or someone we know is happy to butcher them.

[Nicos]

Of course you can eat them!
Anything after roughly 15 weeks and they should be a reasonable size...depends on the breed!
Once they start crowing the meat changes flavour/texture, but is still delish.
I suggest you find someone willing before you put yourself into the situation of having to dispatch them .

If you had a couple of boys, you could offer one to them in exchange for doing the deed.

But you do need to sort this out before you make the decision.
If your OH is already attatched to them you might find she can't abide the thought of having them culled/eat them.

[d000hg]

Can you take them to a local butcher or will they tell you where to go if you turn up with a dead chicken?

[Nicos]

Sorry, I'm not sure about uk slaughter regulations .

[d000hg]

I'm sure we know someone who would be willing.

[coreopsis]

How much space have you got?

[Jay-ell]

If I remember correctly in the UK you can slaughter your own livestock for consumption by you and your immediate family who live at the same address but no one else - not even at dinner parties or for your daughter who lives round the corner.

If someone else is going to slaughter your animals then they have to be licensed and you have to take the animals to their slaughter house. Each slaughter house needs to have a vet on duty when slaughtering animals.

It's not permitted by law for a friend to come round and neck them for you.

Basically if you are planning to eat your own birds you are going to have to learn how to slaughter them yourself.

[Scarlet]

Also it's worth costing it up...it's not a cheap option to get chicken on your table and I wouldn't take cockerals in from anywhere, if you are going to keep them for 20 weeks or more. Some birds don't put on enough meat to make it worthwhile. I would want yo endure that the breed you are feeding for the table is a meat eating or dual purpose variety. Egg laying birds are much smaller and really aren't that suitable. I have light Sussex birds that are dual purpose although I choose them for the table. They are really big birds with a large breast, often people comment on the size of them even though they keep the Sussex hybrid.

[d000hg]

Thanks for the advice. Eating them is more a fall-back plan if we accidentally end up with roosters, or find we hate having chickens for some reason. I don't think we have an interest in raising them as meat, it's all about the eggs.