Help! 4 lovely ladies just moved in, coop and all

Yep, just a fluke. I sometimes get doubles and even a triple, once. OUCH!

If I were you, I'd find what I wanted at a hatchery and make an order, that way you can ask for all pullets and they are 90% right, at least. Out of 75 pullets ordered, and mind you they had to ship me another 35 because of shipping losses, so 110 chicks, I only got 2 roos, one I kept and one disappeared. My experience through the local feed stores here has been pretty much to buy straight run because that's what you're going to get anyhow.

Mature hens can also be mean and nasty to your pullets so get at least 3 to spread the love around.

Sorry to hear it . I hate losing a hen.

You might want to restrict their free ranging a little, I suspect this hawk will continue to hunt in your barn yard. While I agree that a full grown hen is a challenge for a hawk; the hawks in my neighborhood are VERY interested in my flock, even though they have an abundance of squirrels, mice, shrews, etc., to snack on.

Definitely bump up your flock come spring.

Hubby will eat it for breakfast tomorrow, so we'll see if it's a double yolker. (Strangely, I really dislike eggs, so he eats them all. Lucky for him, since he runs about 6 miles a day and is a tall beanpole- he starts the day with all the calories he can get!)

Totally agree! My poor mare is in raging heat, my hens are on laying overdrive. All my girls are miserable. I guess spring is here despite all the snow- that, or I'm surrounded by a bunch of "Fertile Myrtles"

I'll preface this by saying this is my first time buying, and I may eat these words later this spring, but I really trust my local store and have many friends who have had a good experience with them. I like that I can pick them up there and not have to worry about all the stress of getting the through our post office. Of course, I know that the birds don't just fall from a happy place in the sky into the store, but at least I'll know the birds have already survived part of the journey.

I do need to see if I can figure out what hatchery(ies) their birds come from. Been reading some are better than others.

Anyway, I did download the chick order form- it's an Excel file so hard to post here. But, this is the website, and the form is in the top right under "news." They have a lot of options, but I'm leaning towards a couple golden comets and a couple of silver laced wyandottes. And, maybe one more barred rock to replace dear Irma.

Now, stupid question- what is the difference between pullet and straight?

A pullet is an immature hen 1 year or under. Straight run is (should be) an equal mix of cockrels and pullets as they hatch. The numbers always seem to be heavier on the boys. Straight run chicks are going to cost less and that's how many feed stores buy their chicks. If you can check out the mature hens that your friends bought from the feed store to evaluate quality. I have seen mature hens that my local "TSC" sells and they were the ugliest hens I have ever seen! I get my chicks from Privett and have been very happy with the selection and quality of the chicks.

I buy all my chicks from the local feed store and am thrilled with them. No clue where they get them but they are guaranteed hens and they will replace unwanted roosters with a new chick.

Other than one of the idiot salespeople swearing all frizzles will "frizzle" (they don't) and selling us a frizzle that turned out to be a silkie, we've been happy. Not worried that we got a silkie... it's no stupider than our really stupid frizzle and the two of them hang out together in stupidville.

Babies were ordered yesterday. I was hoping to add a few new breeds to the mix, but there was a lot of confusion about the minimum number that had to be ordered (apparently New Hampshire has- or had- a law that stores could sell no fewer than 4 chicks at a time?), and the fact that the delivery days for different breeds were annoyingly too far apart. So, I ended up ordering 4 golden laced Wyandottes- they come in around May 16. Then, the next week, I talked the store into letting me get just 2 Golden Comets, since I will have gotten the 4 others. So, that's going to be it this year. I wanted a little more variety, but it wasn't possible. I'm still really excited for them though!

I always order from my local feed store. They are cheap and dependable. When they get the birds in, the owner checks each bird out for health and gives each of them an electrolyte and sugar solution to be sure that they are well hydrated. If one of them is weak, she keeps it back and pays for it herself. Her goal is not to make money on chickens. Her goal is to get me to have as many chickens as I will have. I buy my feed from her.

Celeste makes a good point. Southern States had Austrolorp chicks last spring, none of my usual sources had them. They gave me 6 chicks for free with the purchase of a bag of chick feed. So I'm pretty clear on which is the money maker.

Normally I've very shy of hatchery or mass produced chicks and try and find ones that are bred and raised locally, but those Australorps have been healthy and good lookin'.