Anyone Can Raise Chickens
(Page 4 of 6)
December 2008/January 2009
By Harvey Ussery
Using Natural Mothers
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Now I’m going to give you the best advice of all: Instead of mail-order chicks, let a good mother hen do the job of hatching the eggs and brooding the chicks for you. The “broody” instinct — the inclination to assemble and hatch a clutch of eggs, and to nurture and protect chicks — has been almost universally bred out of modern breeds. The occasional hen will “go broody,” but most do not. Some traditional dual-purpose farm breeds (cochins, buff Orpingtons, Wyandottes) are known for broody tendencies, though you cannot be sure any given group will produce good mothers. If you want to work with natural mothers, get a few hens of the historic breeds (old English games, kraienkoppes, malays, shamos, asils or silkies), among which the broody instinct is the norm, not the exception. Many bantam (miniature) breeds also are much more inclined to go broody.
You can identify a broody hen by her Zen-like gaze and deep, wary settling into the nest. She answers an extended hand with ruffled hackle feathers and an indignant “Sqwarrrk!” At night, she remains on the nest after her sisters have gone to roost.
Hatchable Eggs
If your flock doesn’t have an adult male (a cock, frequently called a “rooster”), the eggs your hens are laying won’t hatch. If you want to collect eggs to hatch from your own chickens, you should have one cock for about every 12 to 15 hens.
The eggs you are going to set under your broody hen do not have to be collected all on the same day. You can include eggs gathered over many days (up to a limit of about 10 days or so), because the fertilized germ cells remain dormant until the hen begins to set on the eggs and the temperature of the eggs is raised to a constant incubation temperature. You must not make additions to the clutch (or allow other hens to do so) after embryo development has begun, because the eggs would then not be on the same schedule for hatch.
But broody hens are great surrogate mothers and will hatch just about any eggs that fit under them. Many hatcheries sell hatching eggs and ship them through the mail. You also can buy hatching eggs at online auctions.
Isolating the Hen
Don’t even think about letting the hen incubate eggs in a coop where other birds can get to her nest. Move the broody hen (only at night) to a nest in a quiet corner, with some sort of physical barrier to exclude other hens. Provide feed, water and enough space for her to leave the nest to stretch and relieve herself.
Managing the Setting Hen
After you notice a hen has “gone broody,” set her on plastic or wooden eggs initially. If she is agitated at first, give her time to settle on the fake eggs, usually by the end of the first day. Then (again working only at night), remove the fake eggs and substitute the fertile eggs you have collected from your best hens or purchased from good stock.
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