Hatching Eggs and Rearing Chicks

Many chicken keepers like to try hatching eggs and rearing chicks of their own and here are a few of the main points to concider.

Firstly it is essential that you start with fertile eggs either from your own birds if you keep a cockerel or by buying in. This can be from a local breeder or from the many listed on auction sites such as ebay.

Be aware that to get quality birds you have to start with quality eggs laid by healthy birds who really are the breed stated by the seller.

Once you've got over the first hurdle of where to get your hatching eggs, the next question is whether to rely on nature and utilize a broody hen to use an artificial incubator .

Broody Hens
Whilst there are many breeds that will go broody at the drop of a hat, using this as an excuse not to lay you any eggs, and peck you every time you go near, it does not mean that they have the temperament to actually see the eggs through to hatching, or even if they do, to successfully raise the chicks.

click here to read full article Hatching Eggs with a Broody Hen

Artificial Incubation
There are many types of incubators on the market from small manually operated ones to larger fully automatic models. Rule of thumb is that the bigger the model the more reliable the temperature control and humidity levels.
click here to read full article Hatching Eggs with an Incubator

This is just a brief guide as it would take a book to go into all the detail but a few more main points to bear in mind are:

1. Not all eggs that you set will be fertile, and not all of those will make it as far as hatching day, some will die in the shell before then

2. Not all fertile eggs that have made it to day 21 will hatch, but while you can see or feel movement in the shell don’t give up, some will take a little longer than others. Do not be tempted to help chicks out of the shell, these usually end up dying anyway.

3. Not all chicks from the hatching eggs will survive, there are always weaker ones that just fail to thrive.

4. And finally and most important of all approximately 50% of all the chicks you hatch will be cockerels.

If you cannot keep these yourself it is highly unlikely you will be able to rehome them. Be prepared to cull them or if they are a larger breed raise them for the table.

If you cannot responsibly deal with any cockerels that you hatch, then maybe you need to give second thoughts to hatching eggs at all!

All the points made above may give you an idea as to why young chickens are not given away free, and we haven’t even mentioned the increasing price of feed yet...

We are happy to try and answer any questions you may have on hatching eggs, breeding and rearing chicks just contact us using the contact form.

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