‘The seven-day clock strikes six, I hear the warbling of the magpies outside, I have a feeling of excitement of a new day, and today is the day the eggs under the hen are due to hatch. I hear my grandmother’s quiet movement in the kitchen. There is a gentle chirping of newly hatched chicks. Instantly I am out of bed and into the kitchen, dipping my hands into a hatful of soft, velvety black, white tipped, chicks.’ My grandmother had bought the first lot of chicks that had hatched out under the hen into the house away from the hen so that the hen would stay on the, still unhatched eggs, rather than wonder off with the early hatched chicks.

As we both sat by the warm stove, with me nursing the chicks in the hat on my lap, my grandmother told me how to tell the pullets from the cockerels. If you hold a wedding ring on a piece of threat over the chick it will swing one way for a male chick and the other way for a female chick, you could also do the same over an egg. I do not think my grandmother was too convinced by this method, she had more belief in the theory that large round eggs were cockerels and the pointy eggs were pullets. She also told me about the Japanese who could tell the difference between the cockerels and pullets as soon as they were hatched. All this talk about whether they were pullets or cockerels did not greatly interest me, I was more interested in looking at, and wondering how these chicks were made from an egg in only three weeks, it was a kind of magic to me.

A Yokohamas rooster with hen and chickens, at the left of the rooster is a Padua chick.

Setting eggs under a hen was how my grandmother replaced all her laying hens and roosters for eating, and it worked well for most of her farming life. Occasionally she would buy a new rooster from a neighbour or send away to the poultry breeders in Melbourne. She did not have the option of artificial incubation; she always made use of a broody hen when one became clucky, she was able to do this because the farm eggs were always fertile.

For the poultry fancier both methods have advantages and disadvantages. Natural hatching under a hen is an ideal way for a small backyard fancier. The one disadvantage is that it may not always be possible to get hold of a broody hen just when she is wanted. Natural incubation also places a limitation on the number of eggs that can be hatched at any one time. Incubators are more costly and require more of your time than a broody hen. Deciding which method to use, in the end, depends on the individual, based on the time available and how much they want to spend. Here we will look only at the natural incubation under a hen.

The nest needs to be a flat saucer shape depression so that the broad end of the egg is slightly above the narrow end. The natural movements of the hen will ensure that the eggs are reasonably evenly heated and turned often enough to prevent the embryo adhering to the membrane. These operations can be safely left to the natural instincts of most hens.

Not all breeds go broody and some have better reputations than others. Remember you cannot make a hen go broody. While I have never kept bantams my fellow ‘chook’ friends tell me that the most successful broody mothers are generally bantams, also some silkies and silky cross go broody easily and are excellent mothers. Most poultry fanciers would know the breeds that can be relied upon to go broody, but for anyone wanting to set some eggs in their back garden, choosing a suitable breed can sometimes be difficult, as most commercial breeds have had broodiness bred out of them. Once you have a broody hen settled down with her eggs your labour is minimal other than sound general husbandry practice.

Remember a hen can only incubate what she can cover. The hen must be protected from external parasites, such as lice and whatever. A few basic tips when using a hen for incubation: always make sure your broody hen will really sit on the eggs by giving her a couple of nest eggs, or hard boiled eggs, for a start, substituting the genuine setting, of 12 to 15 eggs depending on the hen size. The best time to place the eggs under the hen is at night. A daytime change of nest eggs to eggs may put the hen off. A true broody hen will ruffle her feathers, squawk or cluck and peck out at any intruders interfering with her nest. A broody hen can care up to twenty chickens, many times as a boy, in my parents suburban back garden, I have been successful placing purchased day-old chickens under a broody at night. A hen will usually refuse chickens if they are put with her during the day. She may even kill them if they are left with her.

Sometimes, as often happened in my grandmother’s case, a hen may select her own nest, if it is possible leave her there unless there are good security reasons for not doing so, such as potential vermin attack.

If a hen has made no choice of her own, a suitable nest should be prepared for her in a convenient place, which assures minimal disturbance and weather protection. The nest needs to be about 400mm square large enough for the hen to be comfortable and have an open front of course. Feed and water must be readily available a short distance from the nest to avoid the hen being away too long. A box lined with straw or old grass with a front opening at ground level is ideal. It helps if the bottom of the nest is open so that soil moisture can rise to the nest. It is a mistake to have the nest box in a place that is too dry.

Overall nests need to be dark, with plenty of air and away from other laying hens.

Protection from parasites:
To avoid problems with external parasites liberally dust the nesting material with insecticide power. The hen should also be carefully examined for parasites such as lice or mites. It would help to dust the hen with insecticide powder to make sure she remains free from infection for the length of the time she will have to sit, otherwise she may become restless and even leave the nest altogether. Lice will multiply rapidly on a setting hen if this precaution is not taken.

Images of developing chicks as seen over a candling box: 1. Fertilized egg 2. Unfertilized egg 3. Early-terminated development 4. Terminated "dead" embryonic sac 5. Well-developed embryo, 14th to 15th day 6. 18th day of embryonic gestation 7. Embryonic development stopped on lOth to 11th day 8. Chick before hatching (not recognizable during candling procedure)

To dust the hen it is simplest to hold her with the left hand ripping her legs, her keel along your forearm and her head towards you. If her body is raised she will tend to fluff her feathers and the powder can be shaken into them with every chance of getting close to the skin. The tail, the region of the vent, and abdominal fluff are the most important places to treat against lice and mites.

The broody hen should be fed at the same time each day, if possible, so that she will come off the nest and take exercise. This will minimise fouling the nest. Makes sure she has access to water. Feed grain in preference to pellets as this reduces watery droppings.

Normally the hen will leave the nest in the early evening and so this is the best time to feed her. A hen is very much a creature of habit and will soon become accustomed to feed time and exercise time together. During colder weather get the hen back on the nest within 20 minutes. The hen’s absence will help to aerate the eggs, an essential part of incubation. Diverting back to my own experience with my 10,000 egg incubator, often when topping up the water trays, I would neglect to turn the incubator back on, sometimes it would be five hours before this oversight was noticed, yet the number and quality of the chickens hatched was the same as when this never happened. This cooling down of the eggs in incubators was something that was often discussed during my years of poultry farming. The point is that a cooling of the eggs a little and allowing fresh air into the eggs is not only essential but produces healthier chicks.

Most hens will leave the nest, but some may have to be lifted off the eggs. If it is necessary to handle a sitting bird do so carefully with minimal fuss. First lift the wing to release any eggs that may be lightly held between the wings and the body, if you do not do this you may drop an egg or crack other eggs in the nest.

Some poultry people candle the eggs at seven days to see if there are any clears or rotten eggs amongst the hatch. I tend to try and not disturb the hen once she starts sitting, but as you may have gathered by my careless with my incubator above, I am a fairly relaxed person and tend to let nature take its course.

Eggs should start pipping on the 19th day with most of the chicks hatched on the 20th to 21st day. It is important to make sure the hen doesn’t desert the eggs until all the chickens are out of the shell. This was the first lesson my dear loving grandmother taught me about poultry management.

Once they are all hatched get rid of all the old shells and unhatched eggs and place clean material in the nest. Leave the hen and chicks alone for at least the first day. Young chicks can survive up to 48 hours after hatching on the yolk remains, which have been absorbed through the chicken’s navel shortly before it hatched.

In an ideal world every child should have the experience of setting eggs under a hen and seeing them hatch and observing the mother hen caring for the baby chicks as they grow, it is an enlightening experience, it is also very relaxing to watch young chickens scratch around looking for bits and pieces

References:

1. Fritzsche, Helga "Bantams' A complete Pet Owner's Manual. Barron's Educational Series Inc. 1986
2. Miller, Megg. Ed. 'Australasian Poultry' August/September 1990.
3. Martin, R.D. Extracts from 'The Specialist Chick Sexer' bernalpublishing.com Melbourne
4. Neil, Henrietta. My own memories and the teachings of Henrietta Neil of Amphitheatre. Victoria.
5. Reading, Dorothy. "A Guide to Keeping Poultry in Australia' Viking O'Neil. 1990