Before you think about collecting your chickens try and get everything prepared before hand this should hopefully make the transition to their new home much easier. The placement of the feeders and drinkers is essential and if your hens can't find them they could go a day or two without eating and drinking, so please put them in a suitable location. If you decide to place them out side its advisable to bring them in at night as the layers pellets could attract unwanted pests. Hens should have access to their food and water at all times during the day, try to keep their food topped up. Water wise some suggest that you at a minimum change their water once every three days, we suggest that if you have a small and easy to manager drinker, change their water once a day.
Once you have got the hens home put them straight into their coop or run so that they can get used to the new surroundings, after a day or two you will be fine to let them out free range. At night your chickens should put themselves to bed, this normally happens around dusk. Don't forget to close the door or shut the slide as we have heard many horror stories because people have forgot to close the door to the coop, it only needs to happen once for something unfortunate to happen. Some people have automatic door to solve this problem, but we still suggest that you check on your hens at night just to make sure they're ok. This may seem a bit daunting, but the chances that this could happen is very slim, and even if chances are minimal you should still try to minimise any chances of it happening.