Why do you incubate your eggs?

[rhoda_bruce]

I totally agree with everyone for everything. I never did well with the incubator. I know something is wrong with my little incubator and plan on fixing another one before February, but it just seems to me that I lack the incubator talent. Therefore I always kept a few hens for brooding. I would let them decide when it was time to get more chicks. They seemed to do better than me.

 

[Portia]

There is one really, really great thing to having a hen incubate the eggs....no need for a brooder

The hen's take care of their chicks better than any human ever could and show them the ropes from day one. As long as I have hens I will never have a 'basement' brooder again (messy things).


besides...what is cuter than this

or this

or this

or....well, you get the point

 

[Namble]

GL Larry!

 

[Mahonri]

I had one hatchery bird go broody... a partridge rock. I'm hoping my partridge cochin will go broody. I'm thinking of getting a silkie just for the broody behavior.

 

[silkiechicken]

Because of the hundreds of hens I've had over the past decade, I've only had one successfully raise chicks to adult hood. Granted, I keep mostly hatchery stock for egg laying, the few that did go broody, smothered their chicks.

Incubator allows for hatching on your time and more tame chicks.

 

[muddstopper]

Because its

FUN

 

[Portia]

The tame aspect is very true, Silkiechicken. But then again I'm not one that's interested in holding chickens, so they're allowed to be as skiddish as they wish. I have noticed, however, that once they get to POL and integrate with the main flock they calm substantially to the point that they will come eat out of my hand if I have a good treat.

 

[PhilErvin]

We decided to raise some chickens. My son (16) wanted to hatch them from eggs just because he didn't know anything about the process, neither did I.
We went to ebay and found an incubator, then back to ebay to buy some eggs.
We really enjoyed hatching and brooding our girls. My son and I grew closer and we all had many good stories to share with friends and relitives during the process.
In the process we built a coop and run and finished it as the girls outgrew their cardboard brooder.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=40971
I would encourage anyone who has kids to incubate at least once, the kids learn more than any text book can explain.