Old Fashioned Broody Hen Hatch A Long and Informational Thread

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AnneInTheBurbs said:
I just went outside and candled 3 eggs. They all look like winners! I'm so excited! They looked exactly like the day 10 photos I've seen and I saw movement in one of them. That was so amazing!!!
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cool! I love it when I can see movement! (So do my students when I do the egg unit with them).

11 days (or so) to go.
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Lady of McCamley
 
vpatt said:
Quote: For some reason I didn't realize your chicks were as old as they are. If they are 15 days they should be able to get around very well by now (and fly, too!). My chicks are barely 3 days old. They already know how to go to mom and climb into the kennel when she calls them in. I have them enclosed in a 10 x 10 horse stall. It is too much room for them to get lost in, but it is so cold and windy here they have to stay in the barn. Today when I turned all the chicks out to free-range the broody wanted to go out so badly. Poor girl had to stay with her babies.
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I am attempting hatching under a broody for the first time! My hen is also a first timer, but she has done great so far, 5 days stuck to the "nest" like glue. The nest is actually my computer chair... she is an indoor chicken. I've had to surrender that to her. Her eggs are due to hatch after the new year. She is so sweet with all of them! The eggs I gave her are serama, and she's a LF cochin, seeing her be so gentle as she scoops an egg the size of her chest feathers under her is too funny. I hope she manages, I've seen the signs of this coming on for weeks and she always speeds through her jaunts off the nest like she's urgent to get back. If she quits the nest I'll be prepared for that.

When she hatches her chicks, I plan to take them from her once she seems ready to get off the nest with them and brood them with chicks I have incubating simultaneously in my incubator. Her babies will be small enough to fit under the doors and wander in to places where the cat roams. Will taking her babies cause complications with her broodiness? I want her to stop being broody rather than returning right to nest in strained condition, and want to be ready for what happens.
 
Skink said:
I am attempting hatching under a broody for the first time! My hen is also a first timer, but she has done great so far, 5 days stuck to the "nest" like glue. The nest is actually my computer chair... she is an indoor chicken. I've had to surrender that to her. Her eggs are due to hatch after the new year. She is so sweet with all of them! The eggs I gave her are serama, and she's a LF cochin, seeing her be so gentle as she scoops an egg the size of her chest feathers under her is too funny. I hope she manages, I've seen the signs of this coming on for weeks and she always speeds through her jaunts off the nest like she's urgent to get back. If she quits the nest I'll be prepared for that.

When she hatches her chicks, I plan to take them from her once she seems ready to get off the nest with them and brood them with chicks I have incubating simultaneously in my incubator. Her babies will be small enough to fit under the doors and wander in to places where the cat roams. Will taking her babies cause complications with her broodiness? I want her to stop being broody rather than returning right to nest in strained condition, and want to be ready for what happens.
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I don't know how many chicks you are hatching in the incubator, but a large fowl Cochin can handle quite a few chicks especially little ones like Seramas...I'd be tempted to give them all to her and let her care for them in a corded off area with doorways blocked so they can't wander...use baby gates or something...that is assuming she is a good mother (watch and observe until you are certain).

To answer your question, no taking them won't cause her undue harm, but she might go right back to brooding if you take them immediately. Some hens do, some don't.

Lady of McCamley
 
Skink said:
I am attempting hatching under a broody for the first time! My hen is also a first timer, but she has done great so far, 5 days stuck to the "nest" like glue. The nest is actually my computer chair... she is an indoor chicken. I've had to surrender that to her. Her eggs are due to hatch after the new year. She is so sweet with all of them! The eggs I gave her are serama, and she's a LF cochin, seeing her be so gentle as she scoops an egg the size of her chest feathers under her is too funny. I hope she manages, I've seen the signs of this coming on for weeks and she always speeds through her jaunts off the nest like she's urgent to get back. If she quits the nest I'll be prepared for that.

When she hatches her chicks, I plan to take them from her once she seems ready to get off the nest with them and brood them with chicks I have incubating simultaneously in my incubator. Her babies will be small enough to fit under the doors and wander in to places where the cat roams. Will taking her babies cause complications with her broodiness? I want her to stop being broody rather than returning right to nest in strained condition, and want to be ready for what happens.
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Just my 2 cents, but I would build her a small pen in the corner somewhere and let her raise the chicks. It is so much less work to let the broody raise them. You can build a brooder box out of a piece of plywood, or get a playpen or some baby gates. It was weeks after my broody stopped caring for her chicks until she started to lay again, so it wouldn't have mattered if I took the chicks away early or not.

Also, be careful if the chicks hatch on the chair. They are pretty clumsy and could easily roll off onto the floor.
 
Lady of McCamley said:
First, I'm sorry but I can't find the article that mentioned typical artificial incubators run at 50% efficiency unless a top of the line incubator is used which runs around 100%..I will keep looking for that but apparently mis-filed that article link...I do know it wasn't a study but an article, but my memory was it was a good source...just can't remember where I put it. It however did not give which incubators were better. I think the idea behind it is the more expensive ones take out some of the guess work alleviating some of the risk because of failure to accomplish all the necessary procedures if you have to manually turn, adjust temperature, etc.

My original post's intent was to compare brooding hens to artificial incubators, as the post I was responding to was concerned about using a broody for shipped eggs, so my research study links were geared towards that (and see those below).

I agree a LOT of variables come into play as to individual results as there are so many different factors from different environments, fertility of eggs, and behaviors of hens as well as the differences in the ability of owners running the incubators.

With that in mind, here are my links:

The studies that show hens repeatedly out perform artificial incubators (Go girls!)

Here's one link to a study done comparing number of eggs under smaller hens vs. larger hens, and the overall efficiency of broodies was determined at 87.4%. Amazingly, the smaller hens overall did better at brooding than the larger ones
http://www.lrrd.org/lrrd17/2/azha17019.htm

And another that summerizes (without listing sources) the overall hatchability rates of hens is around 80%
http://www.fao.org/docrep/008/y5169e/y5169e06.htm

And a study that compared brooding hens to a 'rice husk incubator' and a conventional electric...hens came out at 92% hatchability, and the incubators were at 88 to 89%...the study believed this to be a mathematically significant difference.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/013/al675e/al675e00.pdf go to page 15

And finally an old (1909) book on poultry that lists a table of studies that directly compare broodies at 50 to 83% and incubators at 32% to 77% ranges.
See page 38 (search for "comparative efficiency of incubators and hens"). While truly old stuff...it holds up to modern research rates.
http://books.google.com/books?id=Vx...ng artificial incubators for chickens&f=false


Lady of McCamley

EDITED for clarity and better content flow
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As someone who has used both economy models as well as top of the line incubators, no one seems to realize that when you shell out $1,500 or more for a mechanical setting hen, then you likely already have a good understanding of incubation basics. At the commercial level 100% efficacy is the goal, 95% is often the reality, and 90% is acceptable, but just barely. The reality is, no one reading these words would patronize a doctor if 20-30 present of his patients croaked during the first 21 days.

I am not surprised that in one study that the smaller hens were deemed the better mothers. I had an idea that could be the case because of previous experiences, but I didn't have enough experience with big hens to allow me to say anything.

The incubator rooms in large hatcheries are climate controlled so that the incubators are not constantly cycling on and off trying to maintain the Goldie Locks' zone of 99.5 degrees.
 

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