Where to put the brooder box (for natural hatching)?

[whitenack]

Hey all...I am in the design phase of building a new coop and need some advice.

Soon, we want to start breeding our own chicks and will want the hens to raise the chicks for us (not sure what that is called...natural hatching?). We have several different varieties, and we would want to breed only a couple of them and let the rest continue to lay for consumption.

What is the best design for this? Do the broody hens just take over a normal nesting box, or do I need to create a separate box just for them while the rest of the hens use the normal boxes for normal use?

 

[CluckerFamily]

I use a dog crate in the coop for my broody hen.

 

[DobieLover]

Hey all...I am in the design phase of building a new coop and need some advice.

Soon, we want to start breeding our own chicks and will want the hens to raise the chicks for us (not sure what that is called...natural hatching?). We have several different varieties, and we would want to breed only a couple of them and let the rest continue to lay for consumption.

What is the best design for this? Do the broody hens just take over a normal nesting box, or do I need to create a separate box just for them while the rest of the hens use the normal boxes for normal use?

When a hen goes broody, she usually does it in the nest boxes they use daily for your collection. You would want to move her to a ground nest. It takes a bit for her to graft to it so use fake eggs during the grafting process and secure her in the area to keep her on the new site.
Manually manage her broody breaks so you are there to correct her when she first heads back to where she started brooding. Once she faithfully returns to the new ground nest without needing correction, you can give her the eggs you want her to hatch after you've marked them and leave her area open so she can come and go at will during the incubation.
Inspect her nest daily and remove unmarked eggs that other hens may deposit in her nest when she leaves for her breaks.

 

[Ridgerunner]

What is the best design for this? Do the broody hens just take over a normal nesting box, or do I need to create a separate box just for them while the rest of the hens use the normal boxes for normal use?

Different people do this different ways. Personally I let my hens hatch and raise the chicks with the flock. Others isolate the broody hen while she is incubating the eggs, isolate her while she is hatching, or isolate the hen and chicks while she is raising them. Many do a combination. I don't look at it as my way is best and every other way is wrong, just different ways to do it. It's possible there is something about your set-up or goals that makes one way better for you, but I don't know enough about your conditions to see that.

The way I do it is to wait until a hen goes broody and then collect the eggs I want her to hatch. My test to see if a broody hen deserves eggs is that she has to spend two consecutive nights on the nest instead of sleeping in her normal spot. You can easily store eggs for a week before you set them under the hen. You want the eggs to all start incubation at the same time no mater what methods you use so they all hatch about the same time. If you don't do that you get a staggered hatch which can be highly stressful for you and often does not work out well.

Before I set the eggs I mark them so I can tell which eggs belong. With a hen hatching with the flock it is pretty normal for a strange egg to show up. I use a black sharpie and draw two circles around the eggs, one circle the long way, one the short, so I can tell at a glance which eggs belong. Some people might write the date or number them, depends on how you want to mark them. Then every day after the other hens have laid I check under the broody hen and remove any eggs that don't belong. As long as you remove these daily they ae good to eat.

After the chicks hatch I let the broody hen decide when to bring her chicks off of the nest. I have food and water on the coop floor where they chicks can get to them. I clean out the nest and leave everything else up to the broody hen. My broody hens take their chicks to sleep on the coop floor at night but I always make it a point to be there at bedtime so I can be sure everything is OK.

I don't isolate y broody hens but others do. Of course there are different ways to do that. If I were to do that with my set-up I'd build a predator proof area big enough for a nest, food and water, and not much else. I'd move the broody hen to that new nest after dark and see if she accepts the move. If she accepts the move I'd leave her locked in there until the eggs hatch. Some are pretty easy to move, some refuse the move and break from being broody. With my set-up what I do works so I see no reason to change.

Good luck however you decide.

 

[aart]

let the rest continue to lay for consumption.

They will decide who will go broody to set and hatch some eggs and who will keep laying.

If you really want to control breeding/hatching get an incubator.
If you are wanting to breed pure breeds and have several varieties of males,
the breeds will have to be separated for 3-4 weeks before any attempt at hatching.

I like to segregate my broodies behind a wire wall with a ground nest.
I have a temporary wall for one end of coop, a 4x6' area that has a separate human door and a pop door to a separate run. No need to 'babysit' them that way. I just take down the wall a week or so after hatch, add a creep feeder area, and let the integration begin.

 

[cmom]

As others have said different people do this different ways. Years ago I let some of my hens brood. I used a hutch. Now I use my incubator but I also hatch out a lot of chicks.

 

[NatJ]

We have several different varieties, and we would want to breed only a couple of them and let the rest continue to lay for consumption.

You may want to build the coop so you can divide it into several different sections.
Each rooster will happily mate with every hen, no matter what kind they are.
But if you split them up into breeding groups (correct male/females) a month before you start collecting eggs, you can be sure who the parents are for each chick.

If you want to let broody hens hatch eggs, you will just have to see if any of your hens go broody. A broody hen does not care whether she hatches her own eggs, or eggs laid by a different hen. So you could let one hen hatch eggs laid by others, depending on which one goes broody and which kinds you want to raise more of.

Some hens never go broody, and some do it many times each year.

I've had hens go broody at sensible times in the spring and summer, but I've also had hens go broody in late fall as winter is coming, or in January when there's snow on the ground--they can be a bit unpredictable that way

If you get an incubator, then you can hatch eggs when YOU find it convenient, instead of when the hen thinks is right. But then you have to be sure the temperature is right, and the eggs get turned, and so forth--things the hen does automatically. Neither one is always "best," but they certainly have different good points.

 

[whitenack]

They will decide who will go broody to set and hatch some eggs and who will keep laying.

[/QUOTE]
Yes, of course. I was trying to say that there would still be normal egg-laying activity in/around the nesting boxes by the rest of the flock, which might disturb the brood.

I like to segregate my broodies behind a wire wall with a ground nest.
I have a temporary wall for one end of coop, a 4x6' area that has a separate human door and a pop door to a separate run. No need to 'babysit' them that way. I just take down the wall a week or so after hatch, add a creep feeder area, and let the integration begin.

Thanks. I think I like this idea. I kinda need a temporary partition anyway, since I want to keep the varieties separate during breeding. Use the partition to keep the breeds separate for a few weeks, then open things back up and collect eggs, then put the partition back up and hopefully get a broody hen to sit on some eggs.

 

[aart]

Thanks. I think I like this idea. I kinda need a temporary partition anyway, since I want to keep the varieties separate during breeding. Use the partition to keep the breeds separate for a few weeks, then open things back up and collect eggs, then put the partition back up and hopefully get a broody hen to sit on some eggs.

You may need more than one partition area, depending on how many breed varieties you have.

 

[NatJ]

I kinda need a temporary partition anyway, since I want to keep the varieties separate during breeding. Use the partition to keep the breeds separate for a few weeks, then open things back up and collect eggs, then put the partition back up and hopefully get a broody hen to sit on some eggs.

I think you should collect the eggs for hatching before you open things back up.

An egg CAN be fertilized by the rooster who mated with the hen yesterday, or the one who mated with her 2 weeks ago. And yesterday's egg might have a different father than today's egg or tomorrow's egg.

So separate them into the correct groups for several weeks, then start collecting the eggs you want to hatch, and only let them all back together after that.

Of course, if you only keep a single rooster, then you don't have to separate them to control the mating: he will mate with the "right" hens and also with all the others. But separating can let you be sure of which hens laid which eggs, so you only hatch the right ones. (Depends on how many of your hens lay eggs that look alike. If you have Ameraucanas laying blue, Leghorns laying white, Orpingtons laying brown, and Silkies laying tiny, then of course you can tell what breed laid each egg.)