[aviditas]

The 'egg song' from hens is very loud. One of our hens can give the neighbor's roosters a run for his money on sheer volume. I am very glad our coop is a decent distance from the house and away from the neighbors because of it.

Side note, if we weren't avid egg eaters, I would have gotten silkies as they are more petlike and lay a lot less. The bantam versions are good for smaller spaces but that does open up more predators that can target them. I feel comfortable with my larger hens as they can defend against most small attackers like rats (who live in fear of the ladies now), small hawks, and house cats. I agree with most of the other recommendations on getting just hens preferably all the same breed and same age as it limits the bullying among them. There are a ton of great resources out there on raising and caring for chickens. The big ones are know what predators are in your area and build/buy a coop accordingly, free range is great if you have a protector type animal (rooster, livestock dog, some goats even), otherwise plan to have a covered run or moveable run, and you will get so many eggs so planning ahead on how to deal with them is a good idea. I scramble the extras and they get fed to the dogs and back to the chickens. You can crush the eggshells in the cooked eggs for the chickens to help them recoop the calcium.