Should I move ahead on goats and chickens and wait on donkey

It depends. If someone that has animals already and knows what they're doing is asking should I add, we're enablers. After all, most of us suffer from ACD-Accumulative Critter Disorder.

But, for someone that's just getting into any animals, then most of us will advice to stop, look and listen first. Learn what you can, then make an intelligent decision based on facts, not a spur of the moment type of impulse buy.

Please do more research. If you'd done enough you'd know that two roosters with six or eight hens you're likely to end up one dead rooster, one beat up rooster, and six or eight beat up girls. Just because you have the room doesn't mean you need to fill it. It is kind of like thinking that if you have a six bedroom house you should have five kids to fill them.

Why would somebody pay $15 for a mutt bred by an inexperienced breeder when they can get pure bred Silkies from a hatchery for about $4?

Do chickens need lights all the time? Do they need heat all year round? How do you keep water from freezing? What will you do with dirty bedding? How often do you need to clean a coop? Are chickens happier when in the coop all the time or do they like to run? How do you catch chickens? Will chickens eat eggs? How often do you need to get eggs? What does it mean if chickens are missing feathers? What diseases are typical? Do the get worms? Lice? How much room do you need per bird? Do chicks need to be separated from the other birds? Do they lay in the winter? At what age do the start laying? When do they molt? When do they stop laying? What will you do with them after they stop producing? Do you have the money to get more coop space after they start having babies? How much space does a chicken need? What do you do if you have fertile eggs without a brooder? What do you do if several girls fight over the same nest? How many boxes do you need? What happens if a brooder gets off the nest to eat and another lays in that box? What is a straight run? What is the difference between a pullet, rooster, hen and cockerel? How do you know if an egg is fertile? Can you eat fertile eggs? Do you need a rooster to get eggs? How many hens do you need per rooster?

As you can see there are tons of things you need to know. My list isn't comprehensive. My intention is not to get you to answer here but to show you that there's a lot more to chickens than a coop and a heat lamp.

__________________
Moms don't look at things like normal people.
-----DD

I am sorry, 50# of feed a week for less than 8 chickens!?

We have about 52 or 54 chickens right now, granted they have 2 fenced acres to roam and feed from, and garden scraps, but we don't even go through that much feed in the winter!!

Somehow I feel a bit like rolling up my pant legs. Maybe its just me....