# What is the best time of year?



## mamabear2012 (Mar 8, 2012)

We recently moved and want to raise a few chickens. What is the best time of the year to get chicks? As a first-timer, should I buy eggs to hatch or buy day old chicks? I'm brand new to all of this but I really want to have about 4-5 egg layers.


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## crabapple (Jan 1, 2012)

I would start with Day old chicks, on line or at the general store in Spring.
Cock & 5 hens is best to raise your own chicks from eggs.
I have a friend who use both hens & hatchery to get Game cocks chicks. 
He lets his hens set, but hatches the eggs he buys to get new blood lines.
He has a lot of different kinds of fowl, chickens,ducks,Pea flow.


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## weedygarden (Apr 27, 2011)

*What do the chickens say?*

In my experience, chickens tend to set in the spring, if left to their own devices. Also, I have seen chicks in the stores in the spring. Chicks die very easily and need a heat lamp. Chickens do not lay as often when it gets cooler, so that is their input in the matter.


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## crabapple (Jan 1, 2012)

This may help.
http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/821921/first-time-raising-chickens-have-tons-of-questions


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## mamabear2012 (Mar 8, 2012)

Thank you all!


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Chicks in the spring is the norm, one thing that might be worth mentioning is that if you simply want eggs it is often possible to pick up "used" hens for very cheap. If you get them from a place that is respectable or a person who has good reason to sell them then they might give you a good year or two of laying. You don't have to worry about brooding chicks this way but hens there are other drawbacks obviously, hens don't always stay productive for many years.


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