Yes, the hens need nesting boxes. Box should be about chest high, large enough for hen to easily turn around in and have a thresh hold to keep bedding inside. Mature hens lay an egg every other day. Good to start with chicks and have a heat lamp about a foot off the ground. You can buy chick crumbles from feed store. Chicks love noodles and spaghetti. For small chicks cut it up in bits. Keep the chicks in the coop until they are the size of a crow. Sorted chicks will be mostly hens. You can also get sorted male rejects for cheap to raise for meat. The rejects will be from many breeds with some great keepers as they mature. The rest can be used for food. Selecting a good rooster: First, you need to cull dude roosters as they mature. Bad roosters are the ones that get ganged up on. Trust me, the other roosters have good instincts on who to eject. I segregated one outcast just out of pity. He was incredibly bad at chicken politics. He never could figure out how to mate or defend himself. A good rooster will flirt with the hens and offer them food. He will call to them when he catches a tasty bug. A rooster that attacks hens or stands on top of a food pile and drives hens away while gorging himself will certainly get large and meaty so I let one do just that for a time. He ended up at a large party as special guest. Another huge rooster got even bigger but was selfish and got cock blocked constantly by a smaller and smarter rival. He ended up going to another backyard feast. His rival protected the hens and herded them around while always making sure they got fed. A real horndog and the hens seemed to enjoy getting serviced. He was never rough with the hens. Yes, chickens are great bug catchers. Bugs like crickets and roaches became rare. Even tiny antd were targets. Downside: If you want a lawn they love eating grass but damage the edges of a lawn by digging out dust baths. For areas you wish to protect you can staple chicken wire over the dirt. The chickens can't get through thick established lawn thatch so I had no problems there. Newly seeded areas I had to protect with chicken wire.