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- #11
Thank you for this food for thought because I had not visited many of these scenarios in my mind. Now I need to think about all of these. With the previous chickens that came with the house I bought we had a fox come by and wipe them out in a few weeks, so I think in a way I was trying to prep for the inevitable losses that occur with chickens since it seems that everything loves to eat them and they are kind of helpless when it comes to fighting for their survival. My other thought was we are in florida and saw some ticks on one of my sheep so after doing a little digging found out that guinea fowl are excellent at eliminating ticks from pastures but very delicate to care for as keets so in my mind gaining a bit of experience with baby chicks would be better than going absolutely inexperienced and knee deep into guineas.Even if you buy chicks of a breed that often go broody you don't know if any that you have ever will. If you get lucky and they do go broody, it could easily be at a time not really convenient for you. The only way you can control if, let alone when, you hatch eggs is if you get an incubator.
I really like my broody hens but that doesn't mean they don't come with their own issues. I've had a snake eat the eggs out from under a broody hen. I had a hen break a thin-shelled egg and ruin all the eggs in that clutch. They may not always return to the correct nest. If you let them hatch with the flock you need to mark the eggs you want them to hatch and check under them daily to make sure no strange eggs have shown up. If you isolate a broody hen you need to feed, water, and clean.
To be fair, most of the time a broody hen is really easy and doesn't take much extra time, not bad at all, and you don't usually have a lot of drama. If things go reasonably well the hen does practically all the work and there is nothing cuter than a broody hen and her chicks. Most of the time you don't have issues with an incubator once you get it set up. They usually take very little time and effort. Whether in an incubator or under a broody hen all eggs don't always hatch. You can have issues with both. There can be a learning curve with both methods but once you figure it out neither the incubator or a broody hen is that much work most of the time. Caring for chicks in a brooder may take time but I really don't spend that much time doing that either. Some people spend a lot of time on that.
Why do you want to hatch chicks? What are your goals. You have to plan on a lot of the chicks to be boys, what will you do with those? If you hatch many and keep all the girls you will soon be overrun with girls. Hatching baby chicks is a lot of fun but what will you do with them? The answer to that would guide me in what to do. Do you get an incubator, get pullets that you hope someday go broody, or get chicks from a hatchery, feed store, or neighbors.
I hatch over 40 chicks a year because that's what I need for the freezer. I hatch about half with an incubator and, in a good year, half with broody hens. In addition to eating them I keep replacements to keep my flock young and eat some older ones. That suits my goals. I purposely bred broodiness into my flock so I would get broody hens.
I don't know what's best for you. I don't know your goals or why you want to hatch how many chicks or how often. What is best for me is probably not the best for you because I think we have different goals. I'm not trying to convince you one way is better than others, more trying to give you things to think about. Good luck.