smudgley Posted June 1, 2007 Share Posted June 1, 2007 Hello. Need your opinions guys! We have kept chickens before & had them at point of lay & have reared from day old. So seen it from both sides of the fence. I love rearing babies (of any kind) and as we are getting some new chickens (don't have any at present) I want day olds. My hubby wants us to get them at point of lay. **He says if we have day olds we may loose some & some will be cockerals, if we have them at point of lay we know what we're getting & if the cats get hold of them they'll be no more & you have to wait ages for your eggs. **I say baby birds are so cute. I will hopefully rear them without loosing any. The cockerals will just go back to the supplier (she takes them back) and I will keep them safe from the cats like I did last time. As far as the eggs - I say all good things come to those who wait.[/b] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theherd123 Posted June 1, 2007 Share Posted June 1, 2007 Get 2 elgus and do both! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kannie Posted June 2, 2007 Share Posted June 2, 2007 We've got them before POL both times. The first time we thought we'd bond with them better if they were younger! Of course it didn't work - they're so scaredy when they're young, and not really interested in treats either, so we found we didnt really bond till they started to lay. Same with the 2 newbies now. We got them at 15 weeks just because thats the age they were when we needed new chooks. But actually it makes them much more difficult to handle. We couldn't give them a run yesterday after work, for instance, because we were going out to eat, and had no way of reliably getting them back in the run till they were ready! Must be cute as tiny little ones though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chelsea Posted June 3, 2007 Share Posted June 3, 2007 why not meet in the middle and go for a younger chicken that you know the gender of? We got our girls from 8 weeks old. We knew they were hens and they were also cute/babies at the same time. not sure what ages breeders supply at though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chocchick Posted June 3, 2007 Share Posted June 3, 2007 It sounds like you just need to convince your OH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
