Okay, I need to bring everyone up to speed on our Chicken Project.
The Coop:
The goal of the chicken project is to have 4 or 5 laying hens continually and 10 - 25 broilers on an as needed basis. We will start out buying chicks and raising them; both for laying and broilers but I want to transition to breeding our own which will mean getting a rooster but he will come onto the scene later on. These first two issues mean that we will need a large chicken coop. This "large" is large for a personal type chicken coop, not "industrial large". The coop should also need division so that we can divide them between layers and broilers or hens and rooster should either situation be needed.
The Breed(s):
Since we want to start out with laying hens and transition to breeding our own broilers, we will need a breed of chicken that is good for both eggs and meat. We also need a friendly bird. These chickens will be part or a larger unit (our family) so they will need to have the temperament to get along with other animals. The chickens should also be a fairly common breed. we will need to occasionally inject some new blood into our flock and I don't want to have to search to find a rare bread of chicken only to find a very limited gene pool.