Incubating & Brooding
Chicken Hacks! Incubators & Brooders
Use these hacks to make incubating and brooding easier and less stressful for you and your birds.
There are wonderful, ready-made incubators and brooders on the market. If you can afford them, by all means purchase a pair. But if you can’t, you don’t have to give up on hatching and raising your own chicks. Just follow these simple tips.
Use a Hen
In many ways — including raising chicks — mother knows best. A hen shapes her chicks’ behaviors, preferences and abilities through her actions. She teaches them which foods to eat, how to drink water and what to fear.
Without her, they’re less likely to adopt appropriate behavioral and social preferences later in life. She knows how to keep eggs warm, leaving maybe twice a day to exercise a bit, eat, drink and eliminate, then she’s back on the nest.
This poultry “incubator” never phases off and ruins a clutch of eggs when it serves as a mother’s fluffy undercarriage. Roughly 21 days after she sets, her eggs hatch, and there are few things sweeter than watching a proud hen with newly-hatched chicks.
To incubate with a hen, you’ll need the right bird: a setting hen, aka a broody. You can tell when a hen is broody because no matter her usual disposition, she’ll puff up her feathers and shriek and peck if you try to reach under her or if you pick her up. Even if she’s normally shy, she won’t run away.
Broodiness has been bred out of many breeds, so not any hen will do. Adding a few hens of certain breeds, though, will usually increase your chances. The best bets for broody hens include Aseels, Cochins,
Dorkings, Javas, Modern Games, Nankins,
Old English Games and Silkies. Other good bets include Orpingtons, Brahmas, Sussex and Australorps.
Hens of most brown-egg-laying heritage breeds occasionally choose to raise chicks. In fact, individuals of any breed can go broody, but egg-production hybrids and most whiteegg layers rarely do.
Get more than one, if possible. You can’t make a hen go broody, so with several potential moms, you’re more likely to produce chicks when you want them.
Also, choose a laid-back gal. Some of the larger heritage breeds such as Jersey Giants, Cochins and Brahmas are easygoing and excellent setters, but clumsy or aggressive individuals may fumble around, step on and break their eggs.
Once your hen goes broody, treat her right. After nightfall while she’s drowsy, take her to a quiet place (wear heavy gloves!) with a soft nest in place and set her on test eggs for a day or two to make sure she’s serious. Plastic eggs glued shut or old golf balls make great test eggs. If she’s still setting after that, remove the test eggs and give her the real deal.
While she’s on the nest, make sure your hen has ready access to food and water. If you don’t see her off the nest, check for broody poop in her area to make sure she’s taking brief breaks. Broody poop is huge and smelly; you can’t miss it! If she isn’t leaving the nest to eat and drink, be brave, take her off, and place her near her food and water. She probably won’t leave the nest the last three days before her eggs hatch, and that’s OK.
If there’s a chance that other hens might lay eggs in her nest while she’s eating or exercising, mark her eggs with a soft pencil so you know which ones to remove.
Most eggs hatch around day 21. Mama will stay on the nest for another day or so, and then move off with her little family.
Use an Incubator
Plans for making a DIY incubator abound online, but if you build one, you probably won’t get the sort of hatch you’d like. If you want to try, search the internet for “DIY egg incubator” and go from there.
You’ll be better off if you get a commercial incubator if you aren’t hatching under a mother hen. Highend incubators can be wonderful investments, but with care and maintenance, basic models work well, too.
Uniform air circulation is critical in incubation, so for best results, buy a circulating air fan kit for your model. Other extras such as egg turners are less important because you can easily turn eggs by hand. To do that, mark each egg with an X on one side and an O on the other. Turn them at least two or three times a day; more often is better. However, don’t turn them the last three days before hatching.
The right humidity level inside of an incubator is critically important, so follow your incubator manual exactly. If you don’t have a manual, do an online search for “manual” and the name and model of your incubator, adding “filetype:pdf” so the manual is easily downloadable. A tip: If you can’t get the humidity high enough, place one or more small, lightly saturated sponges in the incubator. This increases the wet surface area, allowing more water to evaporate and increasing the humidity.
A used Styrofoam incubators can harbor nasty bacteria so before you set a clutch of eggs, make sure it’s clean. To clean it, remove all shells and dry matter, and use a dry paintbrush to whisk away stubborn
dirt. If the egg tray is removable, soak it in a mild one-quarter dish soap to three-quarters water solution.
If it’s especially dirty, soak the bottom in 25% bleach and water solution, wipe it clean and place it in the sun to dry. Don’t use chemical cleaners as many will melt Styrofoam. And don’t get water on the electrical components in the top. Wipe the top with dish soap and water solution and a barely damp cloth, then sun-dry.
If you have to clean the heating elements, use a paper towel barely dampened with rubbing alcohol. Once it’s clean, store it in a cool, dry location where it won’t be moved a lot since moving it increases the chance of the element being damaged. When buying a new incubator, save the box to store it in.
Build a Brooder
If you aren’t brooding a lot of chicks, a homemade brooder can do as well as a store-bought model for a fraction of the cost. Keep in mind that you’ll need at least 1 square foot of floor room per chick if you plan to use the same brooder until they’re 6 weeks old, less if you’ll move them to a bigger brooder later on. The brooder should be at least 12 inches tall for chicks up to 3 weeks old and 24 inches after that. You’ll also need one or more waterers and feeders, bedding and a heat source.
Large plastic totes, kiddie pools, mesh playpens, wooden packing boxes, aquariums, large coolers with their lids removed, and cardboard boxes all work well, depending on their size and the number of chicks you’re brooding. You’ll need a lid if pets or predators are present to nosh on your chicks. Transparent plastic totes work exceptionally well, as you can use a utility knife to cut an opening in the lid and duct tape hardware cloth or a piece of window screen over the opening. It’s easy to view your chicks through the sides.
If you set up the brooder where temperatures won’t dip below 65 degrees Fahrenheit, a 100-watt incandescent bulb in a clamp-on
Hens of most brown-egg-laying heritage breeds occasionally choose to raise chicks. In fact, individuals of any breed can go broody, but egg-production hybrids and most white-egg layers rarely do.
utility light will do the trick. Choose long-lasting bulbs to make certain they don’t burn out overnight or when no one is home, or use two lamps secured at opposite ends of the brooder.
If you choose a heat lamp, use it safely. Keep it away from flammable bedding and the sides of cardboard boxes or plastic tote brooders. Don’t place a heat lamp bulb in a standard utility lamp as utility lamps aren’t rated for or safe to use with high-wattage bulbs. Instead, choose a fixture designed specifically for brooding chicks. These come with heavy-duty cords, porcelain sockets, a hanging loop and a guard to keep it from coming in contact with flammables, should it fall. Don’t hang it by the cord; suspend it securely above the brooder using strong rope or lightweight chain.
These tips will set you on your way to raising healthy chicks but know what you’re doing before you start, especially when hatching chicks in an incubator or artificially brooding them.
YLong-time Chickens contributor Sue Weaver lives in the Arkansas Ozarks with her husband and a fine array of animal friends.