I've been bitten by the chicken bug!!!

[OldForum]

renee
ok it seems i have been bitten by the chicken bug.i started with three rhode island reds that one of the neighbors decided he no longer had time for ,they werent laying eggs for him and i guess they just didnt fit into his life anymore.he asked if i wanted them and my first thought was , god no!! they stink.but then of course being an animal lover i thought well maybe i could find a better home for them because he was just gonig to drop them off in the woods somewhere and be done with it.soooo i took them temporarily just till i found a home for them
(yeah right!) well the little so and so's weazled their way right into my heart.it only took about a week and a half and i was looking for more wound up finding a lady who just had to many and bought two polish hens and a couple of odd balls with hairy feet(who knows? not me)
well it went on from there and now have 12 chickens 5 of which are just three days old and growing quickly!! as im sure you guys know all about that.but heres the thing,i know nothing about chickens except what i have been reading and learning from my own very recent experiences with my chickens so i need help!! i want to keep all of my babies whether they lay or not and i want them to be happy.i need to build nesting boxes which i will gladly do for them but im not sure on the size and how far off the ground they should be.i have one hen who lays for me and she does it in the garbage can(eeww) you can imagine my surprise when i went out to the coop and found that i would like to get some from what i have heard you guys talk about on here (battery farms) but i have never heard of one and dont know where to find one.do they have them in florida?

Wendy
Hi Renee,
They do get under your skin don't they. LOL I haven't yet got any others than the four I originally had, but that is only because the garden is too small LOL.
I can't say I know anything about rescue of battery hens in Florida,we do have the Battery Hen Welfare Trust in England that we get out girls from.
Try putting battery hens in your search and you maybe will find one in the States.
Good luck with your search they are SO worth it.
Wendy

Matt
The best thing to do is search through the many poultry forums out there. So long as you have the basics covered like food and shelter then if anything unusual crops up (pests, diseases etc - though fingers crossed you won't come accross anything like that) then it will have been covered more than once somewhere.

Good luck and happy chicken keeping to you,