Time of year for incubating

[BDutch]

My concern with incubators in storm season is loss of electricity which is not uncommon. Broodies are consistant.

Nowadays you can buy these kind of emergency / of grid power stations from $ 250 .

 

[CrystalAnon]

We are in Florida and just had a broody hatch 6 eggs. We have them on a brooder box I. Our screened porch. We have 4 additional brood hens but only one we are giving eggs too. She has 4 (she is a small hen) and as of yesterday 3 of the four are definitely developing. One has developed but we think it may have stopped. We are giving it another few days. Storms are an issue here but you would be surprised how hardy chickens are. We dealt with last years hurricane season without a loss. My concern with incubators in storm season is loss of electricity which is not uncommon. Broodies are consistant.

That’s awesome. I would use our screened porch, but I had a black soldier fly box on our screened porch for one night, and something (I think a raccoon) tried to jump up onto the porch. Didn’t get in but scratched up the screen real good.
We have lost power during storms, but we have a generator, which powers most things in our house, so I don't think that would be an issue.

 

[CrystalAnon]

We are in Florida and just had a broody hatch 6 eggs. We have them on a brooder box I. Our screened porch. We have 4 additional brood hens but only one we are giving eggs too. She has 4 (she is a small hen) and as of yesterday 3 of the four are definitely developing. One has developed but we think it may have stopped. We are giving it another few days. Storms are an issue here but you would be surprised how hardy chickens are. We dealt with last years hurricane season without a loss. My concern with incubators in storm season is loss of electricity which is not uncommon. Broodies are consistant.

How do you deal with reintroduction of the hen with her chicks?
I’ve had sick hens only in the house for a week, and the other flock members are brutal when I’m trying to get her back integrated with the flock.

 

[CrystalAnon]

I agree about the eggs for a broody.
Fresh eggs (3-14 days old) are the best to change fake eggs with real eggs.

Maybe its too late now anyway to try with a broody this year, but I wonder what breed you have. Some breeds are well known to become broody very often. And hens from some breeds rarely become broody.

With my bantams it always works to lay 4-5 fake eggs in a good nest-box in spring. Within a week one or two of my hens become broody when they are triggered like this.

I cant advice you for the right moment but its good you consider what the weather will be like in a couple of weeks/months before you start incubating. It’s important to provide the chicks a good start.

I have three breeds of hens. 2 French Black Copper Marans, 2 Alchemist Blues & 3 Azure Eggers (leghorn crosses). the only hen that has gone broody was one of the Alchemist Blues, twice, last year. But she was a bit TOO easy to break of it, so that was concerning.

 

[Ridgerunner]

the only hen that has gone broody was one of the Alchemist Blues, twice, last year. But she was a bit TOO easy to break of it, so that was concerning.

My test as to whether a broody deserves hatching eggs is that she spend two consecutive nights on the nest instead of in her normal sleeping spot. That test may fail me some day but it hasn't yet. When one might be going broody is when I start collecting eggs for hatching. Nothing wrong with what you are doing, just more work than I want to do.

Does anyone have experience in timing for incubating eggs in southern states, that get gnarly weather in the summer?

I've hatched eggs further north with an incubator with temperatures below freezing. I've hatched eggs with an incubator or broody hens in the middle of summer. The chicks don't care what the temperatures are next door, they need the right temperatures where they are. What they really need is a place warm enough to go warm up if they get cold and a place cool enough to avoid overheating if it is hot. A broody hen gives them a warm place. A heat plate, heating pad, or heat lamp can give them a warm enough spot. In your climate they probably will not need that after 3 weeks or so. Cool enough generally means good ventilation and shade. They need room to get away from the heater.

One summer in Arkansas we had a ridiculous heat wave. Highs were over 110 Fahrenheit every day for two weeks with overnight lows in the 90's. I hatched a bunch of chicks at the start of that. My brooder was in the coop from Day 1. I turned the daytime heat off at Day 2. I turned the overnight heat off at Day 5. They simply did not need any additional heat. I should have removed the heat earlier, they were in danger of overheating. That was rare and it did stress me some but the chicks handled it fine.

To me, the question about when to hatch them is a lot less about the weather than what your facilities look like. You have to accommodate the weather but as long as they can stay warm enough without overheating they will be OK from that aspect. You also need enough room. Lack of room can make this hard any time of the year.

Some people think you need to isolate a broody hen and her chicks from the flock, either while she is incubating or when she has the chicks. I let my broody hens hatch with the flock and raise the chicks with the flock. Again facilities can be important. If space is tight then isolation could be a good thing, but you still need extra room to integrate later. If you have sufficient room a broody hen can handle integration for you. There are always different ways to do anything. Which method works best depends a lot on what you are working with.

Should I wait until next year to incubate in early spring, if my ladies don’t want to be mammas?
I’ve been arguing with myself for two months & eyeing the incubator I bought!

Since that hen went broody twice last year there is a good chance she will again this year, although she is a breed that is not supposed to go broody that often. My hens generally do not start going broody until May or June though occasionally I might get an early one. In my opinion you can wait until she goes broody and give her eggs. Or you can put some eggs in the incubator now. But get your plan together now how you would manage either scenario.

I put a dog crate in the coop as the nest to give a broody hen a place to sit, with food & water in it. But all the hens now prefer laying in there over the regular nests, just because it’s so private.

If she goes broody on that nest you can supply her with food and water and lock her in and the other hens out so they are forced to lay somewhere else. Clean the poop out as necessary. Put fake eggs in the other nests. They may start laying there if they can't get to the preferred nest. Or they may make new nests somewhere else.

Or mark the eggs you want her to hatch and check under her daily after the others have laid to remove any that don't belong.

Maybe go to the Florida state thread in the "Where am I? Where are you!" section of this forum. Chat with your neighbors and see what they do. They share your climate.

Good luck!

 

[Eggs_Over_EZ]

A brooder box is for incubated chicks. The broody must have the possibility to get out to poop and eat. And after a 3-5 days the chicks need to follow mama.

It is a very large brooder box with room for the hen to roam. We have a run we will be putting them in this week during the day. We have to put up netting first.

 

[Eggs_Over_EZ]

How do you deal with reintroduction of the hen with her chicks?
I’ve had sick hens only in the house for a week, and the other flock members are brutal when I’m trying to get her back integrated with the flock.

We have 4 hoops coops and finishing up a rooster pad. We intend to use our newest run to integrate the chicks and a group of hens in the next week.

 

[Eggs_Over_EZ]

Nowadays you can buy these kind of emergency / of grid power stations from $ 250 .

Yes I have seen them. We have a gas generator for our home for hurricanes when you have days without electric.

 

[CrystalAnon]

We have 4 hoops coops and finishing up a rooster pad. We intend to use our newest run to integrate the chicks and a group of hens in the next week.

Oh that’s awesome! We only have one coop & a hoop run. Anything we set up needs to be within that very well protected coop & run. But the coop is way drier than the run, consistently.

 

[CrystalAnon]

Yes I have seen them. We have a gas generator for our home for hurricanes when you have days without electric.

We have a 250 gal propane gas generator for most things, but we were without power for over 90 hours after Helene. It’s fine if you’re out of power for 36 hrs or so, if you don’t have your generator hooked up to your AC… but after that it gets painful. We bought a new generator for this hurricane season. For our AC & possibly our oven. (AC is all I care about) Those are the only two appliances that are not hooked up to our generator back-up power.