Incubating and hatching eggs

[Jan/new chicks]

I have eggs in an incubator and a hen setting on eggs. Due to hatch within a day of each other. Will the mother hen take on the incubator chicks after they hatch?

 

[Farmgirl47]

She should. I just did that myself actually. We took most of our broody hen's eggs from her and put them in an incubator for safe keeping. The first couple chicks hatched almost two weeks ago, and the second to last egg (the last one is at this moment internally pipped) hatched today. The hen has 10 chicks now, and excepted each one as her own. The reason there is such an age difference in the chicks is because previously 4 hens were broody, but 3 of them quit way before the eggs were ready to hatch.

I'd wait until the chick is partly dry (a few hours after hatching) and then I would put it under the mama. Or, if the hen is big enough, you can slip the incubator eggs under her when they are close to hatching.

 

[Jan/new chicks]

Thank you for that idea, I will give that a try.