how do you take care of chickens?

You are quite right to want to research this project carefully, as mistakes in choosing equipment and starting with your birds can be expensive and heartbreaking. Starting with chickens isn't cheap. But once you have the right equipment, a good coop with a strong predator- proof run, proper feeders, drinkers, bedding, shelter, etc, these things will last a long time if you take advice before purchase, and get good quality, not necessarily new. But forget about doing it on the cheap if you want your birds to lead safe, happy and productive lives - the rewards come in other ways than in your purse.

Start by reading all you can. Begin with Poultrykeeper, see http://poultrykeeper.com/ which has lots of reliable, interesting advice and help for newcomers to the hobby. Then also join an online poultry forum, such as Poultrykeeper Forum itself, see http://poultrykeeperforum.com/index.php

Lots of friendly experienced people on there who will talk you through all the stages of planning for your first birds.

Tending young chicks isn’t difficult, nor need it be elaborate. As well as chick starter and clean water, they need a draft-free brooder pen with a red brooder lamp on at all times. This keeps the temperature at 92oF at 2 inches above the floor. (It also reduces picking and cannibalism among chicks.) When the chicks have feathered out, reduce the temperature by 5 degrees per week until they are 6 weeks old, then switch their feed from chick starter to grower mash.

Instead of buying chickens every year, you could hatch your own. Of course, you’ll need a rooster to get fertile eggs. Check your zoning regulations; some places allow hens, but not roosters. Hens will lay perfectly well without one. (The occasional blood-spotted egg isn’t caused by the rooster and is perfectly fine to eat.)

You’ll also need a broody hen. Broodiness—the instinct to sit on eggs until they hatch—has been bred out of a lot of chickens, but we always had one or two who would begin to sit tight on the nest and peck if we tried to remove their eggs. Bantams are famously broody, and a bantam hen will hatch other hens’ eggs.

You can hatch replacement chicks yourself with a home incubator. Eggs take 21 days to hatch. (Did you know that there are best times for setting eggs under a hen or in an incubator? You can find more about setting chicken eggs by the Moon's Sign here. An incubator must be watched; chicks left too long after hatching will die of dehydration or picking. One particularly determined one in our incubator picked its way through the screen guard around the ventilation fan and was decapitated. On the whole, we found it best to leave it to the hen.

Are you wanting to keep them as pets, raise them for eggs, or getting them to raise to slaughter for meat?

You will need a chicken coop - which is a shelter for them to go into at night. You can build a pen around this or can let them free range in your yard. I suggest building a pen but you can open the pen after they are use to your home, and can shut the pen at night or when you are away.

You need a waterer - chicken food (scratch and ration), oyster shell, and grit.

Chickens are pretty easy really and they eat insects in your yard too so do not spray bug killer or it can kill your chickens.

Here is more information:

http://expertspages.com/2012/12/tips-on-keeping-ch...

First of all you need a chicken coop (high quality), You will need a decent sized place of grass, you will need chicken food, you will need a patch of dirt (so it can take mud baths) i would also advise you to get more than one chicken.For the bed you will have to put in hay or straw (never use newspaper)it hurts their butt.