I'm going to add in my 2 cents. I have purebred chickens. Have shown off and on for 40 + years. I have raised laying hens, free range on pasture, simple sex-links in different colors/breed combinations. I am lucky to have connections with a couple of commercial "concentration camp" broiler poultry farmers. I get the "left-behinds" when the birds go out every 45 +/- days and bring them home and fatten them up on dirt as opposed to the confined enclosed houses they are raised in.
There are diseases that chickens get. I had a bout with Mareks one time years ago. It sucks. BUT, if you are getting the birds from someone who has decent looking birds, if you take the time to look them over and check for external parasites, and they are reasonably clean, if their eyes look bright and they aren't droopy or raspy, then bringing them home, housing them in whatever you have available, that gives them some room and reasonable accommodations, separate from your existing birds for a few days or a few weeks.... then you should be fairly safe.
Letting them out to get some of the "germs" that already exist in/on your soil/grass etc is a good way to get some exposure to and develop some immunity to what is existing. I find that more than the "horrible disease exposure" is the co-mingling of birds. There are always bullies in chicken flocks. Different breeds have different temperments. Different ages can cause some concern when co-mingling.
Anyone who spends $650 on a chicken is out of their mind. Sorry if that offends anyone. There are more chickens. I would hesitate to spend that on one of our cows/bulls etc. I cannot justify spending more on an animal than it is worth, in MOST cases. There are cows that I have put down, that have been a favored animal, and just "swallowed" the salvage value rather than ship it to market. But, you have to be reasonable and accept the fact that they are animals..... they do not have the same value of a human life.
Do reasonable precautions. Take good care of them. Address their needs and provide as safe and healthy an environment for them that you can.
I also hate to tell you but you do not have any "silver laced orpingtons".... The blueish looking ones are just that , blue orpingtons. They will be that slatey blue color with darker blue/black edging on the feathers. Silver laced is basically a white feather with a black edging. There are silver laced wyandottes, silver laced cochins, silver sebrights and silver polish which are basically the same pattern. Orpingtons only come in white, black, buff and blue. They may be mixed with something but what you have definitely are not silver laced anything. NOT bad looking birds, don't get me wrong. But this is what is the matter with all these "EXPERTS" because they don't really know what the true breeds are, or their characteristics. I am not a fanatical show/purebred person. But I like a breed to be what it is, and things like these "easter eggers" gets on my nerves, because they are also one of those crossbreds that get touted as a "breed" when they are not. Great for a home laying flock, but they are just a crossbred that has the blue/green egg laying gene.
