Hey beefy, read Stepper's message.
From what I've learned about chickens (the hard way), you need to confine them and close up the door at night so nothing can get in there (raccoons, foxes, dogs, cats, the Great Pipsissewa). I keep "laying mash" in a feeder inside the coop; waterer is in the fenced in area outside the coop. Clean water! I give them "scratch" every morning for breakfast. A couple of times a week I give them some crushed oyster shells. I have an assortment of old small boards and a few big rocks in their pen that I turn over once in a while so they can splurge on worms and bugs that congregate under these objects. And they get leftovers (spaghetti, bread, veggies, cereal, crackers)...NOT rotten stuff that's turning green, just regular leftovers, but not meat or, heaven forbid, chicken!
I don't think you can expect real young hens to start a clutch of eggs and hatch them out (I may be wrong). Some of the "laying hens" people buy now have had all the broodiness bred right out of them. But they WILL lay eggs that you can collect daily and eat. Maybe Minnie and Pearl are descended from a setting hen, which would certainly help.
Our bantams run around loose all the time, and some camp out in the coop with the big hens. And guard eggs. And peck at me when I try to retrieve the eggs. A bantam hen doesn't care who laid it, it belongs to her, and once she accumulates a bunch of them (10-20?), she may go "broody" and decide to set on them. She'll turn the eggs herself everyday, she'll get off the nest maybe once a day to eat and poop, she'll steadfastly stay there for 21 days until they start to hatch...and still she'll stay there. The chicks will hatch and stay under mom for a day or so until she decides it's okay to bring them out and teach them to scratch and peck. It's a wonderful thing to watch. But don't try to pick up those babies, mom will go straight at your face with feet and beak. When they start to hatch, I give her a small feeder and waterer so she can eat and teach them when they're ready.
Sorry this is so long, didn't mean to write a book, just wanted to share my experience with our chickens. Here's a list of some websites that you can look at if you want to:
http://www.themodernhomestead.us/article/Poultry.html
http://homesteadingtoday.com/vb/
http://p072.ezboard.com/bbackyardchickens
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plai ... using.html
http://www.ext.vt.edu/pubs/poultry/factsheets/10.html
I like chickens, can you tell?