LOVE the broody nest and how cute they look brooding together! An old tire....perfect!
I never incubated all these years and then finally did last year...did okay but still not enamored with the practice. Just as I had imagined, it feels all wrong. I think I'll be able to improve on a breed without hatching massive amounts of chicks, it just will take longer.... fast doesn't always win the race.
About incubating....I also don't know why folks want to hatch so early in the year...that's not natural either. That mystifies me. Why not follow the rhythm of nature and have chicks when there is the most food abundance and the temps are warm? I'd venture to say most broodies go broody when it's natural to do so and when it's the most conducive for raising chicks, by natural design. Wonder why everyone started going against that natural design?
It is not about speed, it is about variability. The numbers provide variability and encourage as a result some genetic diversity. The numbers also provide genetic depth.
Some with excellent exhibition strains can get away with 8-10 hens and only hatching 40 birds. The birds are already highly perfected, and they do not mind breeding especially tight (which is not good for production). So you can do it, but the birds need to be at an already high degree of excellence. Some gamecock breeders used to do the same when they had some individuals that were outstanding. They also were not concerned with color, and vigor as priority number one all of the time.
It is also depends on qty. of selection criteria. It is helpful to have an all black or white bird.
Running a few hens and hatching a few chicks is more perpetuating or replacing than it is improving. It can be done, but the birds need to be in excellent shape to start with.
So no, it is not a race. Progress is slow regardless. It is about variability, and pulling out birds that are genetically useful. It is about making progress rather than standing still, going backwards, or going in circles. It is about having a goal, and actively working towards getting there.
Concerning the timing of those hatches, many want to have there birds in there prime for show season. I do not like to hatch as early, and I will not perpetuate birds that require that much time to fully develop. I do on the other hand hatch earlier than mine go broody. I am more intelligent than the hen (some might debate that), and know I will get better growth rates and more steady growth if I get them to 75% of their weight by the time the real heat sets in. In the south it is best to "beat the heat".
You are also operating from a faulty position when you debate for what you perceive as natural design. There is nothing "natural" about raising poultry to begin with. Natural would be jungle fowl foraging the clearings in and around deciduous forests of Southeast Asia. We developed these birds for our own reasons and manage them for our own reasons. We domesticated and manipulated the genetics in a way that we got what we wanted from them. They are no longer natural and natural would not be a temperate climate to begin with. Our birds would not survive if we let them go in a wild place that they were originally native to. They no longer have eclipse molts or are built around the rainy and dry seasons. They instinctively come into "season" when the day light is long enough for them to do so. Where they are from the daylight is always long enough.
Natural would be making a bow and arrow and run the forests hunting Turkey. Not raising chickens that were at one point something else entirely, then developed as fighting fowl for thousands of years, or for religious reasons, and then laying fowl, and then dual purpose fowl, and then the commercial options etc. LOL. There is nothing natural about a Buff Orpington. LOL.
I think what we missed here was that no one was critical of using brooding hens. It was pointed out that it was not a practical option for some with the goals and reasons that they have. Everyone raises them for their own reasons and goals. What works for one may not work for another. There is no wrong or right. There are no natural laws or moral laws being broken. It is natural for us to do what we are doing. To do with what is my own as I please. They belong to me, and are a possession of mine. I do not belong to them, and am not subject to them. I manage them, and manage them well.
