Is an incubator necessary?

[BackyardBradshaw]

Wow there is so much information here, I love it! I have spent countless hours over the past week reading everything about raising chickens. We don't have any birds yet, but plan to in the next couple months.

This may be a silly question, but is an incubator necessary if the mama chicken lays on her eggs herself? I've read in some threads that the mama chicken will sometimes lay on them until they hatch.

If that did happen, would you still take the chicks from her and place them in a brooder or is it best she stays with them?

This is all so new to me, I'm just asking questions as I think of them.

Thanks!

 

[NatJ]

This may be a silly question, but is an incubator necessary if the mama chicken lays on her eggs herself? I've read in some threads that the mama chicken will sometimes lay on them until they hatch.

If that did happen, would you still take the chicks from her and place them in a brooder or is it best she stays with them?

If the hen is broody (sits on the eggs to keep them warm), then yes she can hatch the eggs.

And yes, she can raise the chicks too. She will let them snuggle underneath to get warm, then take them to eat food and drink water, then warm them up under herself again, and so forth. You just need to make sure they have food, water, and a safe place to live. (Much easier than raising the chicks in a separate brooder!)

Whether a hen will go broody depends on the individual hen. It's more likely in some breeds than others, but can happen in any breed.

There are many hens that will never go broody.
Of the ones that do go broody, most will be good mothers.
(But there are a few that go broody and then quit before the eggs hatch, or that hatch the eggs but then do not take good care of the chicks.)

 

[Northwest_Wannabe]

It depends! As far as I'm aware, you can't MAKE a hen go broody and sit on eggs to hatch chicks for you, so without an incubator you're kinda at her will. WITH an incubator you can kinda collect and hatch anytime (fertility can fluctuate with seasons but technically anytime haha).

Having a hen raise her own chicks is really cool, although I personally only recommend letting broody hens who are higher on the pecking order hatch chicks. I won't leave a big huge essay here on why but it just seems to work out better in my experience : D

Hens can totally raise chicks, they'll generally need some assistance from you still (seperate area with food and water) but less so than if you had them in a brooder. In my experience broody-raised-chicks tend to be wilder than hand raised ones. Sometimes in certain situations you'll need to take the chicks from a broody and raise them yourself, which hopefully never happens but can. We've had to do it twice, the chicks are very weary of people cause I think being raised by mom even for just one day (and the days prior when they talk through the shell) they understand that humans are not the momma haha, it's a weird challenge but not impossible

 

[Ridgerunner]

is an incubator necessary if the mama chicken lays on her eggs herself?

Before chickens were domesticated this is how they reproduced, just like the wild birds where you live reproduce now. Some chickens still have those instincts but many chickens have had those instincts bred out of them. We call this going broody. There is no guarantee that a hen will ever go broody and you certainly have no control over when. And the eggs need to be fertile to hatch, which means you need a rooster.

If that did happen, would you still take the chicks from her and place them in a brooder or is it best she stays with them?

People do this all kinds of different ways. I let my broody hens hatch and raise the chicks with the flock. Some people isolate the hen while she is incubating or isolate the hen and chicks after they hatch. Occasionally some people will take the chicks away when they hatch and raise them themselves. In my opinion there is no right way where all other ways are wrong, just different ways to go about it. Sometimes that is personal preferences, sometimes that is due to circumstances.

 

[BackyardBradshaw]

Thank you! These are all great replies! I'm so glad I found BYC. Here's one more question though...how do you know if the eggs are fertilized? I think one of my biggest fears is cracking open an egg to have breakfast and having a baby chick fall out. Silly I know, but I'm a beginner and this is how I picture it happening

 

[Myrshine]

It’s a personal choice really. You can let your hen hatch the eggs herself and raise the chicks or you can artificially incubate the eggs yourself and raise the chicks yourself. It really depends on what you’d like.

 

[ChocolateMouse]

Thank you! These are all great replies! I'm so glad I found BYC. Here's one more question though...how do you know if the eggs are fertilized? I think one of my biggest fears is cracking open an egg to have breakfast and having a baby chick fall out. Silly I know, but I'm a beginner and this is how I picture it happening

You don't, if you have a rooster you can largely assume they're fertilized. Some people say you can tell by looking at the blastodisc but I've also seen the same people say that eggs from an all female flock are fertile so I find that claim dubious.

But the good news is it also takes hours to days at temperatures over 95*F for an egg to develop. That way all the chicks hatch at the same time. Here's an example;

So usually a day 1 egg (incubated for 24 hours) may have a little streak of blood in it but nothing solid. So if you pick up your eggs daily (2xs a day in very hot weather) and store them somewhere cool you will never ever have this issue.

When a broody hen hatches eggs she stops laying and sits in the nest box and screams and bites and clucks when removed. If you have a hen like this you can set fertile eggs from any source under her at night and she will hatch them.