How do hens manage to do what a fancy durn incubator can't?

[columbiacritter]

My last broody was up and down off her nest, eating drinking, sometimes letting them go stone cold and yet they all hatched fine.

A friend in Louisiana regularly hatches great clutches when it's over 100 every day and over 100% humidity. She laughs when I talk about keeping eggs at 50% humidity and 100 degrees, she says that's practically airconditioned by her standards. She has very successfully hatched eggs by putting them on an egg turner sitting in a cardboard box on her porch with no incubator or hen involved.

BUT! If my incubator varies more than a few degrees or the humidity slide just a little to much then it's a crappy hatch.

Go figure.

 

[pgpoultry]

Let's just say chickens were hatching eggs thousands of years before incubators came on the scene (maybe not the fancy varieties we now have, though!)

Sandie

 

[ellie_may12]

From Louisiana here..I'm hoping that your friend's method is right on. I just put 5 guinea eggs under my broody American Game Hen. She sits on the clutch over night and a while during the day, then she leaves them and lets the other hens come in and lay eggs in that nest while she stands around and coos at them. She'll sit on a nest with no eggs and still acts broody. I'm hoping that she knows what she's doing. I'm going to leave her alone and hope those eggs produce some keets. We shall see!