Bought a house - previous owner moved to a town home so we kept the chickens. There is a decent amount of space on the property, and half of it is a forested hillside.
Any suggestions for a newbie? A new coop is definitely first thing on my list. And a fence around the property.
One of the chickens is an outcast and I feel bad for her, doesn’t leave the coop when the others go out in the yard and doesn’t eat treats from the ground just food from the feeder. The other chickens get along well it seems.
Look into ways to kill chickens humanely. It might be required to reduce an animals suffering or to keep the rest of your flock disease free. If you feel that you can not kill a chicken, then you should think about giving them up for adoption.
Pickup a book about chicken diseases, a chicken that doesn’t eat treats or scratch/peck at the ground might be a sick chicken. I recommend The Chicken Health Handbook, 2nd Edition. Obviously, you should buy a copy if you find it helpful.
Take note of the local predators. If you got bears for instance it might greatly change how you want to build that replacement coop and pen.
After reading your comments in this post I suggest you look into what you might need to provide your flock with the correct nutrition. Chickens need grit since they dont have teeth, so look into that. Also an often overlooked thing is calcium which you can supplement with crushed oyster shell but there are also other alternatives, some that may be used both as grit and calcium like calcium carbonate (altho this is often debated). Just make sure your chickens are eating enough and have hard eggshells. Try to see if there is a local feed store by you to understand your options. Also, with the amount of chickens you have it might be better to consider making your own feed. This woukd require you sourcing, storing, and mixing it all yourself which takes effort and real estate but it will also save you a lot of money and might even give your chickens fresher more nutritious food.
There are apps that can help you set recurring alarms for different levels of sunset. I use Suntimes so I have an alarm at the start of golden hour each day, which gives me time to observe the flock and still get them inside before it’s too dark
Beginning your message with “look into ways to kill chickens” is diabolical 💀
Unfortunately some people aren’t aware of the realities of owning barnyard animals so it’s better to say it so people who aren’t aware become aware. They aren’t pets so you have to treat them a little differently.
I’ve met people who studied to become a nurse only to discover that they faint at the sight of blood. People need to be aware of their limits before investing into something that’s not for them.
There’s an entire British comedy series with 10 seasons on this premise. It’s called Doc Martin, where a guy with such a fear leaves his job as a surgeon to become a GP in a remote cornish village.