Keeping Chickens: Incubation

I find one of the most rewarding ways to get a flock of chickens is to incubate your own eggs. It's amazing watching them hatch and grow up from little balls of fluff into awkward teenagers and then into a lovely flock of chickens. Children find it fascinating and it's a great way to teach them about life cycles and nature.

It is however not for the impatient. On average you'd be looking at 6 months at least before the hens start laying, if not longer if you hatch later in the season [my Wyandottes took 10-11 months before they started laying]. Not to mention the likelihood of getting a fair few roosters in the hatch.

There are two ways of incubating your own eggs, either with a broody hen or an incubator. Both have their advantages and disadvantages.


Broody Hen
Let's start with a broody hen. For this method to work, you do need to already have a broody hen, so this is more suited towards people who already have their own flock.

What is a broody hen? A broody hen [also known as a clucky hen] is a hen who has decided to incubate a clutch of eggs to hatch. The 'broodiness' of a hen is really dependant on the breed and the individual hen. Some breeds will go broody a lot more than others. 'Fluffy bum' breeds do appear to go broody a lot more than others, so if you are looking for a good broody breed, I would suggest Wyandottes, Silkies and Pekins.

A typical stance of a broody hen, fluffed right up and looking grumpy!

A broody hen is characterised by not wanting to leave her nest without some force, being rather nasty if you get close to her and her nest-she won't hesitate to try to take a chunk from your hand! When she is off her nest, she will often cluck and be fluffed up considerably.

The hen will lay eggs  in her nest until she has enough for a clutch-the number is really dependant on the hen. Often hens will lay their eggs together, so 'clutches' form quicker and some hens will go broody more often.

The hen will do all the hard work for you. She will sit on the eggs, hatch them and raise the chicks. The eggs will begin to hatch in about 21 days and may take a day or so before they all hatch. They will all hatch around the same time-even if the eggs were laid days apart, because the embryo in the egg will not start to grow until the inside of the egg has hit a certain temperature [normally after 24-36 hours of the hen sitting on them solidly].

A mother hen with her chicks.

You will need to provide her somewhere away from the rest of the flock to hatch and raise the chicks. Other hens may disturb her from her nest if she is brooding in a communal nesting box and often other hens and in particular roosters, will try to kill chicks that aren't their own.

Chicks hatched and raised by a hen will not be friendly towards people. They will more often be flightier and less trusting, unless handled a lot-if the mother hen will let you!


Incubator
Incubating eggs is so fun and rewarding. If all goes well, you get to follow the eggs through the 21 days in the incubator, watch in awe as the little chicks break out of the shells and fluff up into cute fluffy chicks! The hardest bit can be not opening the incubator!

Chicks hatched in an incubator and hand reared will be friendly towards people, the amount of friendliness depends on the breed and how much handling you do of them as babies as well as once they are grown.

Incubators vary dramatically, from small plastic foam boxes that will incubate a dozen or so eggs to large commercial incubators that do hundreds. Second hand incubators come up quite often for sale and are probably the best thing to start with. You can build your own, but unless you have some prior knowledge with incubators I would stick with a commercially made small incubator which has instructions!

A Hovabator brand foam incubator which can fit 4 dozen eggs

As every incubator is different, I can't really provide much instruction on how to set it up. Set up the incubator according to the instruction manual and if you have trouble, have a search online for trouble shooting guides for your incubator.

Most require some water in the bottom to provide the humidity needed for the eggs to hatch, depending on the model you may or may not need a separate hygrometer to measure the humidity. Make sure it is placed in an area which is free from draughts and temperature fluctuations [and pesky cats!].

An auto turn Janoel 24 egg incubator with a pesky cat!

The incubator should be set at 37.5-37.7 degrees C [99.5-99.8F] throughout the incubation period for chickens. Other poultry may be slightly different. It is a good idea to run it for 24 to 48 hours prior to putting eggs in, to make sure it is holding temperature properly and there are no other issues presented. Those first few days are when the eggs are most vulnerable to temperature changes and could cause the eggs to die in early stages of incubation.

Humidity varies depending on the sources you read. I like to keep about 50-60% humidity until day 18 and then increase it to 70% during hatching. But this does vary depending on the incubator, so check the instruction manual for recommendations.

Chicken eggs take approximately 21 days to hatch, although I have had them start at day 19 before. For more on the hatching process, please see Keeping Chickens: Hatching [not yet published]