Well, it’s going down. I’m fully committed.

20 days ago I put all my ‘eggs in one basket’.  Technically, I put them all in one incubator.  The outcome of our incubation run will determine the size and quality of our laying flock and our meat for the coming year.

Each spring when I undertake this 3 week escapade I get a bit nervous.

There’s no doubt that a hen does a better job at this than I do. We’ve allowed numerous ‘broody’ hens to run their course with a clutch of eggs and they typically are superstars. My hero hen was given 16 eggs at once and hatched 15 of them out.  Note: only a broody hen will set aside all other chicken commitments to become a mother. She will unreservedly align herself with the welfare of her little eggs and the future chicks they will become. She ruffles her feathers, develops a cranky cry to ward off any advancing hens or humans wanting to gather her eggs and she stays put. I mean she stays put like Horton the Elephant in Dr. Seuss’ epic story. She means what she says and she fully obligates herself to becoming a parent. A non-broody hen will lay her egg in a nesting box, hop out and go back to foraging, preening etc So, unless you put eggs under a broody hen your flock will not expand.

Then, there are some miserable flops – occasionally a hen decides mid-way thru that she’s had enough and she up and quits. Others, will shove their way into another’s nest and want to switch clutches – generally a scrap ensues that breaks the eggs they each want to care for.

When you work with broody hens you are working with attitude. They are generally so committed to becoming mothers that nothing else matters. They leave the nest every few days to relieve themselves and that’s it. They drop weight and get cranky. For 3 weeks it’s all about undisturbed care of the eggs underneath.

It always riles me when I hear people reference ‘those dumb chickens’ suggesting that chickens are unintelligent. They are incredibly successful at being chickens and I challenge anyone to emulate a hen’s performance in simply hatching an egg.

Here’s a few of the ‘skills’ and behaviours a broody hen manifests if she’s left to her own devices:

  1. she daily adds an egg to the nest until she she’s ready to start sitting on a clutch of eggs

NOTE: Fertile eggs that have been laid and left at room temperature carry all the potential to hatch as soon as they start to be incubated. So, eggs laid over a week long stretch  all start to develop simultaneously when she decides to punch her ‘I’m gonna be a mom’ time card and starts to sit on them

  1. She maintains a body temperature of 99.5 F
  2. She maintains humidity under herself of about 45 for the first 18 days
  3. She keeps all eggs on their sides with the narrower ends slightly downward
  4. Multiple times a day she gently adjusts herself and uses her beak to slightly alter the position of each egg (but only for the first 18 days)
  5. On day 19 she stops adjusting the eggs + she increases her body’s humidity to over 70 as she ‘knows’ higher humidity helps soften the eggshell
  6. As the chicks starts to hatch under her she does NOT move. She keeps eggs and babes all together and war. As each chick hatches, it slowly dries off and stays under mom. The eager ones may pop their heads out for a peek at the big world around them but they don’t leave mama.
  7. Only when mama is convinced that all babes who will hatch are done, she gingerly stands up and takes them in search of their first drink and meal.

NOTE: She ‘knows’ a chick who cannot hatch solo will not survive. She doesn’t help anybody hatch.

Dumb chicken?  I don’t think so.

Back to our incubator which tries to mimic a broody hen. It’s a 70 year old model – a large wooden box on wheels with 5 large wood and mesh screen trays that slide in, like a bakers’ oven. Inside there’s an electric lower heater and an upper fan.

Myself and the incubator have done the same dance 5 or 6 springs running. A ‘great success’ has been about 65% hatch rate.

For 18 days I’ve turned all the eggs 3 times every 24 hours. Pans of water in the bottom helped regulate the humidity. The temp has been carefully held between 99.5 and 100.5

When the wind blows outside I get dreadfully concerned about  trees taking out electric lines.   A power outage mid-hatch would be a doomsday. It’s never happened yet!

This round we have eggs from our hens and two friends. A total of 276 eggs gathered over 6 days. No matter how many hatch – half will grow to be roosters (providing meat) and half will be hens (providing eggs).

We pull out each chick with a greeting and dip its beak into warm water for its first drink. We note how many chicks hatched in each tray. The new arrivals are placed under warm lamps in a dimly lit room that’s toasty. Within a few minutes they are moving around – finding their food and water on their own.

Hatching chicks is a tiny glimpse at the circle of life and a discovery of how incredibly adept a hen is at increasing the odds of ‘counting her chicks before they hatch!

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