by Heather Nicholson of Scratch Cradle
Will you be setting eggs this spring under a broody hen or in your incubator? Both natural and artificial incubation will get the job done, but one may be a better fit for your flock. Here is a point-by-point comparison of these two methods.
Timing
You can schedule artificial incubation but timing natural incubation is hit or miss. If you are ordering hatching eggs from a breeder, you need to set them within a few days of their arrival. Unless you have a very broody flock, there is no guarantee that you will have a hen ready to brood on a specific date. There is no way to make a hen go broody although some believe that allowing eggs to accumulate in the nesting box may encourage broodiness.
If you are hatching from your home flock, you can easily accommodate your broody hen’s own schedule. Collect hatching eggs daily and record their date. As you collect newer eggs, move older eggs to your eating egg supply. This way, you will have fresh hatching eggs at the ready should your hen decide to brood.
Reliability
Both natural and artificial incubation have their pitfalls. Hens sometimes quit brooding, but this is less likely to occur with an experienced or proven broody. Brooding hens may defecate upon and contaminate their eggs or step on their hatched young. However, successful broodies generally have hatching rates which exceed those obtained by at-home artificial incubation, given healthy, well-formed, fertile eggs.
Artificial incubation is subject to power outages, accidental unplugging, user error, and well-meaning relatives. As much as artificial incubation seeks to imitate nature, it is challenging if not impossible to precisely replicate the frequent turning, temperature and humidity regulation, and vocal encouragement provided by a broody hen.
Brood Size
Hens can incubate as many eggs as they can cover which will never be so many as most common incubators. If you need to hatch out a large number of chicks at the same time, perhaps as part of a breeding program where you wish to compare all of the offspring to one another at a particular age, then only an incubator will do. However, if you have a small flock and only want to add a handful more pullets to come into lay in the fall, then a broody’s clutch is the perfect size.
If you are small-scale and flexible, then the broody hen is the perfect choice for you. It will reduce your work load considerably and provide you with a reasonable number of healthy chicks with well-instructed foraging and bathing behaviors. If you are larger-scale and working on a large project or within a strict time-frame, then an incubator is an excellent choice and you can begin building trust as you rear the chicks yourself.
20 Comments
I have 14 blue splash marans hatching eggs arriving by Friday 3-1-13. I have read that the eggs should rest on the counter for 24hrs prior to placing them into the incubator. What is the purpose of this “resting period”? I keep my house @ 62 degrees and am wondering what effect this will have on the resting eggs. Should I increase my house temp or will the 62 degrees be OK??
How do you tell if the hen has started brooding? She sits on the egg, refuses to get up but eventually she moves. currently have eight chickens and would like to try my hand at hatching this year but as I do not have a rooster will have to purchase already fertilized eggs. I would like to have the chickens mother the eggs and babies but am not sure how to tell if she is ready to brood yet, any information or advice would be very appreciated.
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You don’t want to put eggs in the incubator that are going to hatch at different times. You set the incubator up and put eggs in at one time. I have put some in the next day but never past that. The humidity at hatch time is extremely important. Chicks can(should) stay in the incubator until they are totally dried off.
how do you regulate an even temp in the incubator if you have to open it to take out newly-hatched chicks at different times?
The temperature should come back up quickly in a good incubator. Try to open the lid as infrequently as possible. That said, Bird Lady, who commented below, is completely correct. The humidity is crucial. Chicks can be stuck-in-shell if you open the incubator and allow the humidity to escape. If you are going to stagger hatches, do it conscientiously. Be sure that there are at least four-to-five days between hatches so that one group is not pipping when the other needs to be taken out. Also, remember that chicks can live up to three days inside the incubator without food or water. In nature, this allows a mother hen to stay on the nest until all of her chicks are hatched. Thanks, Farmgirl!
Forgot crossing breeds can be fun have an olive egger she is 3 years old. Want to try and get more this summer. Last year ended up with all roosters. I also have a lavender orpington crossed with an easter egger she lavender colored with the cheek tuffs and I think she is the one laying pink hued eggs.
Thanks for the breed recommendations, Bird Lady! My Welsummer was a great broody mom, and I have a friend who uses exclusively Australorps and swears by them. Silkies and Silkie crosses are also excellet broodies.
I do both incubate and use a broody hen. If you want to use broody hens you need breeds that go broody. The best in order that I have found is as follows Copper Marans, bantam Cochins, Orpingtons,and my Coronation Sussex. As for guineas they are horrible mothers. they hatch them out and if the babies don’t keep up they leave them. They can have 20 little ones and with in a week they will haven 3 left. I usually take all but 3 away from the mom other wise you will not have any. My Copper Maran hen was the best for hatching she raised the guinea’s as like they were chickens. Friend asked why they (the guinea’s)were not acting like the normal crazy birds they can be and I said these have a chicken mom.
Any thoughts on how far down(away)a poop tray should be from the chickens roosting perch? I am wondering if mine is too close to their butts? I have had some problem with ‘losing feathers and then a sore butt’.
Where do you store the eggs while waiting for the hen to go broody? If they are kept in the fridge and are cold when you put them under her, that seems like it would be too much of a shock.
It would be best not to refrigerate the eggs before incubating. Some people store their eggs in a cool closet away from the house’s main heat source. Others store their eggs in the basement or a cool room in the house. I usually keep mine in the bottom of an unused bathtub!
We moved to rural America a couple of years ago. Have been slowly learning how to homestead. SO much to learn! Anyway, we have one broody hen. She has hatched out two batches of eggs. My question is regarding what you do with the eggs you are collecting for a broody. Do you store them in the refrigerator or just at room temperature?
We also have a few guineas. Surprisingly one of those hens hatched a few chicks on her own last spring. Seems we are in a drought, so the chicks had a fighting chance of not getting cold/wet. (I suppose that was one plus to the drought.)
It’s ideal to store hatching eggs at 55-68 degrees F with 75% humidity. (You can read more detailed instructions here: http://scratchcradle.wordpress.com/2012/03/12/collecting-and-shipping-hatching-eggs/.) Some people store their eggs in a cool closet away from the house’s main heat source. Others store their eggs in the basement or a cool room in the house. I usually keep mine in the bottom of an unused bathtub! You can provide humidity by placing a small bowl of water beside the eggs. Store them with the wide end up in a closed egg carton. Place a book or piece of wood under one end, and once a day move it to the other end. This will keep the yolk from sticking to one side of the egg. I usually write the date and a code for parentage on the wide end with a pencil, and then I remove older eggs and replace them with new. That’s the ideal, but many people just keep their eggs on their counter and still have great hatches.
Chicks make for a great surprise! Guineas still have so much of their natural instincts intact. I bet they make great mothers, and I do hope to add guineas to my flock sometime this year or next.
Thank you for providing so much information in one tidy place. There are so many factors to consider, and you’ve made it easier.
Have you seen the guest post on broodies on the Natural Chicken Keeping blog?
http://naturalchickenkeeping.blogspot.com/2013/01/broody-hens-natures-incubators-your.html?m=1
Thank you, Norman. I just took a look, and it’s a great article. I love your question and answer, and your birds are beautiful!
We have both hatchery and incubated chickens. We are having a really hard time incubating. We tried our first broody this last week and she is a bad girl. She moves in the middle of the night. We took her off after 3 days of cold eggs.
That’s a shame! Some girls just won’t settle. I often try mine on wooden eggs for about four days. If they sit tight on those, then I’ll give them real eggs. My biggest problem has been hens who won’t set in their broody pen. They just cry to go back with their friends, and then when I give up, they go back to brooding in the nest box! Now I just put those girls inside the big coop in a dog crate so that no one else tries to lay in their nest and potentially break eggs. Is your broody still a pullet? Sometimes they aren’t quite ready to commit. It’s strange that she’s moving at night. If she is moving just off to the side, maybe she would do better in a smaller nest with high sides, like a cardboard box. Good luck, Rose!
We just moved into the world of incubating after buying all our chicks from a hatchery over the years. We’re now working on breeding olive-eggers, so being able to hatch experimental crosses is crucial.
Our first hatch was 1/2 homegrown and half shipped breeder eggs. It was fun and also nerve-racking getting the incubator up to speed. then maintaining the right temp and humidity.
We’ll be starting a new batch soon though.
That is absolutely awesome! I’d be curious to know what sort of feathering you are aiming for with your olive eggers, but I know that can be a trade secret. I have seen both barred and wheaten, and both are beautiful. I love a deep olive egg! If it would be of help, I have an incubation guide which you can download off of my Google Drive on my website. It’s just a free file share, and you can find it at : http://scratchcradle.wordpress.com/resources/downloads/. Congratulations on your new endeavor, and I wish you the best of luck with your incubating!