Chicks raised by mom (broody hen) are stronger than incubated ones: they seem healthier, learn faster, behave better and adapt better to the outside world. The first 5-6 weeks after hatching chicks from the incubator spend time without supervision of an adult chicken. But the hen-raised chickens are taken care of from the first day of their life.

This is why sometimes Edward-the-farmer tries to “convince” a broody-hen to adopt incubated chicks. But you need to know how to do it. Mother-hen knows her chicks, and rejects others: she can attack them and even kill them. So how to “convince” her to adopt others, and not of her chicks?

First of all, the time ⏲️ of hatching of eggs on which the hen sits, and the eggs in the incubator must be the same. When Edward-the-farmer notices a hen ready to sit on the eggs, and this is the right time of year for incubation, he begins a new incubation.

The world is not perfect. Sometimes chicks in an incubator hatch first. In this case, Edward-the-farmer will place the chicks from the incubator in a cage with a heating element. He will wait until the eggs under the hen start to hatch. One day later Edward-the-farmer will move incubated chicks to the hen. But sometimes chicks under the hen hatch first. In this case, broody hen will accept other chicks during only two days.
In both cases, chicks are introduced to a hen at night ☪️ when the hen does not see them. And she takes them all! We are lucky that the chickens do not know the math: a broody hen can not compare the number of eggs on which she sat, with the number of small fluffy chicks surrounding her now!

On the photo you can see a black banty hen Julia. She was a perfect mom . She had a record for eggs’ hatching, and took an amazing care of her own chicks as well as the adopted ones. Her chicks were always very clean, well fed, healthy and good behaving. Julia was killed by a mink-predator with all her last hatched chicks at the autumn of 2017. R.I.P. Julia!

Julia-the-broody-hen

What happens when little baby-chicks hatch from eggs? New hatched chicks need heating available any moment.

• After being hatched, they stay in our house for a couple of weeks, in the rabbit cage, with a heating plate installed there.

Little chicks in the rabbit cage with a heating plate

New-born chicks

• When it gets warmer outside, we transfer them to our backyard to chicken coops with a heating lamp.
• When they become 5-6 weeks old, they don’t need heating anymore, and we move them to the farm.

Usually, when on the farm, one of the adult roosters become their “teacher” ‍who keeps them warm on cold nights. He also teaches them basic chicken skills and safety behavior such as how to scratch the earth and find insects, not be afraid of humans feeding you, to run away from a predator when it approaches you, and so on.



The teacher and his young students

When little chicks grow up, approximately at the age of 4-5 months, the young roosters start to sing and sometimes to fight with each other and even with their “daddy-the-teacher”, young hens start laying eggs (very small at first), and that’s the sign that their childhood is over .

They get split the same way as other adult chickens on our farm: the hens are kept together with one rooster to 5-6 hens, and the rest of the rooster are relocated to the “roosters only” coops.

We name some of our chickens.

• Harry, Ron and Hermione trio was one of our first attempts to hatch chicken eggs in incubator.
• The trio hatched in spring 2016.


Harry (black), Ron (white) and Hermione (brown) as baby chicks

• They lived in our house in a rabbit cage together with a rabbit who loved these baby chicks.
• Once, when we were feeding them, Ron ran out of the cage, and started running around the house. It took us a while to catch him and place back in the cage.
• When the trio grew up and was introduced to the chicken flock, they stayed together and kept their friendship.


Harry, Ron and Hermione as teens

• Harry, pure ameraucana blood, died at young age (no dark magic involved!).
• Ron, the mix of a white-laying hen and an ameraucana rooster, was the most active chick in this trio. He became an alpha-rooster of the entire flock by the end of 2016.
• Hermione became a nice brown-ish ameraucana hen.


Harry, Ron and Hermione as young adults.

The chickens are very fragile, they die from various diseases, from predators attacks, from old age, and so on.
In average, they stop laying eggs when they become four years old.
But we need a certain amount of eggs for our customers, so we need a certain quantity of laying hens.
To compensate loses, we need some new chickens every year. We cannot rely on broody hens as they are not many, so we incubate eggs to grow new chicks.

One of our incubators

It takes 21 days for a fertilized egg to hatch in the incubator – the same as if a hen sat on it.
We start incubation in February and finish in April so the chicks grow through the summer to maturity by winter.
Incubation is not a simple process. The eggs should be turned at least twice a day. The temperature, humidity and ventilation are crucial factors.
It’s so hard to resist not to open the incubator when the first chick hatches! But we need to be very patient, and wait for up to two days until the rest hatches as well. Otherwise, we can lose those chicks who didn’t hatch yet.

A new born baby chick

A broody hen is a chicken that has decided to sit on and hatch a clutch of eggs.
The eggs may be fertilized or unfertilized, the hen will sit on them anyway. On our farm the most of the eggs are fertile.
The broody hen will sit on the eggs for 21 days, day and night, leaving only once daily to eat, drink and poop.

A broody hen sitting on eggs

Some breeds are more prone to going broody than others. On our farm, we have silkie hens as a good example of a breed prone to broodiness.

Our days a broody hen is very rare. Why so? A broody hen is not a productive hen: she stops laying new eggs when she is setting on the eggs for 21 days before they hatch and through the rearing stage of the chicks which may take about 2-3 additional months. Since commercial poultry farms are production oriented, they cannot accept a hen being non productive for 3 months. Hence commercial production farms choose breeds that are not prone to broodiness.
On our farm, when Edward-the-farmer notices that a hen wants to sit on eggs, he will dedicate an isolated chicken tractor to her, will migrate her there with eggs, and will patiently wait until the eggs hatch.

Taking care of baby-chicks

We have many chicken breeds on our farm: banty, silkie, phoenix, leghorn, ameraucana, bovan and chantecler and all possible mixes of these breeds.

Silkie hen with baby chicks	Phoenix chickens
Bovan hen	Banty hen

 
We keep chickens for eggs. Different chicken breeds lay eggs of different color, size and even shape! Hence we have white, brown and green eggs and all possible shades of these colors like for example beige, pink-ish, blue-ish, and so on.

Eggs of different colors and shapes

Eggs of different colors

• Silkie, chantecler and phoenix lay coffee eggs relatively small in size
• Ameraucana hens lay medium size green eggs
• Bovan chickens are responsible for large brown eggs
• Leghorn hens lay large white eggs
• Banty are in charge for small beige eggs
• But when we have a large green egg or a small brown egg, it’s a logical riddle to identify the mix of breeds that produced it

Why are the eggs different colors? In nature colored eggs are easier to hide in grass. So some chickens preserved their ability to lay colored eggs. They all taste very similar – there is almost no difference based on egg color.

We start with a series of short stories about our farm and farm animals.
The first story will obviously be about our chickens, who are veterans of our farm.   

• We have about a total of hundred hens, roosters and chicks
• Chickens live on average 5-8 years, but so far on our farm the longest survivor has lived 4 years as that’s how long we grow chickens.
• Chickens are omnivorous, like humans. They eat almost everything: grains and grass, fruits and veggies, insects and kitchen scrap.
• Young hens usually lay 2 eggs in 3 days or 1 egg every 26 hours. They lay far fewer eggs in the winter. Older hens lay eggs less frequently. Hens start laying eggs when they are about 6 months old.
• In summer, chickens live in mobile chicken coops or tractors in families of several hens and one rooster.


Mobile chicken coop

• Every morning, as part of the morning farm routine, Edward-the-farmer moves the chicken coops so that the chickens have access to fresh grass, insects and worms, which are their main source of calcium. At the same time, Edward-the-farmer feeds his chickens with grains and fills their waterers with fresh water.
• Every evening, as part of the evening farm routine, Edward-the-farmer collects eggs, cleans the nests and, if necessary, changes the bedding.


Edward moving the coop