Tips for Incubating and Raising Chicks with a Mother Hen

Preparing a Place

1. Don't use this method unless you are content to hatch a limited number of eggs and are willing to make a greater risk of a failed hatch. Most standard size hens that go broody can easily cover 12 to 15 eggs. Large hens of large breeds may be able to cover as many as 20. The more eggs under a hen, the greater the risk that some eggs won't be covered effectively and consistantly enough to hatch. In addition, although most hens will be Hortonesque in their faithfulness, some may give up on the eggs altogether or at least leave the nest for too long at the wrong time for a very successful hatch.
2. Don't use this method unless you are flexible. You will have to wait for a hen to go broody, and it won't necessarily be when it is convenient for you. There's no proven or widely accepted methods for encouraging hens to go broody. Heavy and dual purpose breeds are more likely to go broody than Mediterreanian and other breeds developed for high egg production.
3. To tell that a hen as gone broody, look for a hen that stays flattened out in the nest box in a trance-like state and stays there at night. You can also look for a patch of naked skin on her underside. And if she warns you away with a loud squawk, you'll know she's broody. Although I've heard that some hens go broody only after they have created a clutch of eggs often in an odd or hidden location, our hens have gone broody in an empty nestbox.
4. If you want the process to be successful from incubation to hatching through chick-rearing, you should remove her to a special brooding area that you have prepared just for her. You don't have to act immediately, because once a hen has broody, she will remain broody for a good long while -- much longer than the three weeks it would take to hatch out chicks.
5. Put the hen in a separate house or room that can be used for both the incubation and hatching period and the time when the chicks are growing. If you use a cage or a box to house the hen, the area may become too small very quickly after the chicks hatch. Then you may have to move them all when it isn't very convenient to do so. If using more than one broody hen for natural incubation, house the hens separately. Rival mother hens may attack each other's eggs and chicks.
6. Minimally the brooding area should be somewhere quiet, dark, clean, draft-free, isolated from the rest of the flock, free of lice and ticks, and safe from potential predators. Allow ample room for the hen leave the nest to eat, drink, and poop.
7. Prepare one comfortable ground-level nest. A wide, flat depression in litter works well. Eventually baby chicks may fall or will climb in and out and around, so they will need to be able to easily return to their mother. Many different kinds of litter may be used on the floor. We use kiln-dried pine shavings. Many use straw. Don't use anything slippery, such as newspaper.
8. Have feed and water available at all times, even if the hen may only get up to use them once a day.
9. Meanwhile, collect and save the eggs you wish to hatch. Since a hen will sit on eggs that aren't hers, you aren't limited in which eggs you can collect. Select eggs from healthy, mature hens who are popular with the roosters. Prefer medium to large eggs of regular shape. Don't wash the eggs, and don't use cracked, thin-shelled, or dirty eggs. If you want to mark the eggs for identification, use only a regular lead pencil.
10. Until you are ready to place them under the hen, store the eggs where the temperature is somewhat cooler than normal room temperature. [I've seen temperature range advice as low as 40 and as high as 70] and where there is some moisture in the air. Do not refrigerate them or let them get too warm. You can safely save eggs for up to a week, but not much longer. If you can't store eggs in ideal conditions, don't give up, but you're beginning to gamble with their hatchability. Keep them in an egg carton with the pointy end pointing down. So the yolks won't stick to the shells, move the carton a couple times a day so it is not always horizontal.
11. When the brooding area is ready, wait until dark before moving the hen. You probably won't disturb her as much, and if she does get riled up, she should be more likely to accept her new quarters.
12. Before placing fertile eggs under her, test a broody hen for a couple of days to see if she sticks tight to the nest. You can place her on golf balls, artificial eggs, or regular eggs that you are willing to sacrifice. You don't want a hen that will abandon the nest partway through the incubation cycle.

Hen and Eggs

1. Maintain good records and keep track of time. The minimal record keeping you should do is to mark your calendar for 20 and 21 days ahead. That's when the chicks should start to hatch, and you want to be sure you can take off some time then. If you keep good records and store them where you can find them again, you can consult them when you try natural incubation again.
2. Once you are sure the broody hen will be a good setter, replace whatever you currently have under her with the eggs you wish to hatch. Place the eggs under her all at once, so they will hatch within 24 hours of each other. Do this at night, since you are less likely to disturb her and cause her to reject and abandon the nest and eggs. Don't worry how you place the eggs. The hen will shift them numerous times over the course of the incubation.
3. Watch for the hen's routine. She will likely get off the nest once a day for a few minutes to eat, drink, defecate, take a dust bath or exercise. All hens are different, so this ritual could be in the morning or in the evening, for a very short period or as long as half an hour. Some tenacious hens won't leave at all without encouragement.
4. Place a waterer far enough away from the hen that she won't bump it or knock it over or spill it onto the nest and eggs.
5. We provide chick starter as her feed and make it available all the time, even if she only eats once a day. Chick starter has a higher protein content than regular layer pellets, and broody hens don't need the extra calcium, since they aren't laying eggs.
6. Be sure the hen returns to the right place when she leaves the nest. Remove or level anything the hen might think is an extra nest, so she won't get confused and abandon the egg clutch.
7. Don't disturb either the hen any more than you have to. The hen will do all the necessary work of turning and adjusting the eggs. The eggs should stay moist and warm from the hen's body.
8. The less you handle the eggs, the better. If you want to inspect and candle the eggs to check on their progress (or lack of), resist the temptation of doing it too often. On the other hand, you don't want to have rotten eggs that could create health and safety problems if they crack open. A good compromise is to candle all the eggs at the same time about halfway through the incubation process. If you discover rotten eggs, remove them. During the last week of incubation, expect the hen to stay on the nest full time without turning or fussing with the eggs. That's all natural, so leave her alone.
9. Have a back up. It can be very frustrating when a hen has been faithfully broody for two weeks and then gives up on the eggs. If you have another broody hen or an artificial incubator at hand, you can still save the clutch.
10. The sound of peeping should give you a day or a few hours warning that the hatching is about to begin. It is also the cue for the hen to get out of her brooding funk to start her mothering duties.
11. After peeping will come pipping, as chicks crack and break a small hole in the shell. The hatching process has begun.
12. Be prepared to be awed, thrilled, and distracted.

Hen and Chicks

1. Once the chicks start hatching, don't peek or remove the eggs from under the hen just to get a better look. They are exactly where they need to be. A few, infrequent inspections are warranted. Hens are surprisingly good at multi-tasking between incubating eggs and caring for baby chicks. The hen will usually stay on the nest for 24 hours or longer to provide time for all the chicks to hatch and keep the hatched chicks very close under the wing.
2. Don't handle the wet, newly hatched chicks. Wait at least until they've had a chance to dry off and fluff out, and most inspections can be made without touching them. Don't worry if the chicks don't eat and drink on the first day. New-born chicks can survive up to three day just on the yolk they absorbed before hatching.
3. If the chicks have not all hatched within a day or two of each other, the mother hen may ignore the remaining eggs as she moves about to care for the chicks. Unless you have an incubator or another broody hen, you may have to give up on the eggs. They may not be viable anyway. If for any reason you want to slip a peeping egg or baby chick under a hen, do so at night if you can. Don't try to introduce a chick older than three days.
4. Provide an ample supply of clean water. You can use plain water or water enhanced with an electrolite/vitamin mix. Use specially designed chick-waterers that will prevent chicks from falling or climbing in to drown. Whether we have had 8 or 12 chicks plus the mother hen, we've used three quart sized waterers.
5. Use chick-feeders designed to keep chicks from both pooping in them and wasting feed by scattering feed everywhere from scratching. One 12 or 20 inch long feeder or a couple fruit jar circular feeder are sufficient for up to 20 chicks and the hen. Feed the hen and chicks the same feed. Use chick starter, since it is formulated for proper chick nutrition. We use unmedicated chick starter or gamebird starter when unmedicated chick starter is not available. You will have to decide what you are comfortable with. Make sure feed is always available, even at night.
6. Provide grit that is sized for chicks after a few days. Curious chicks, even when tiny, will find all manner of things to ingest, and the grit will help them digest it. Grit may be sprinkled on at first or or provided separately. Don't use ground oyster shell as a substitute for chick grit, as the calcium isn't good for young, growing birds.
7. Maintain dry, sanitary conditions. Remove wet litter. As the litter gets dirty, you can add more on top, or remove poop and dirty litter and add just enough new litter to replace what you've removed. A mother hen will defecates infrequently, but produce extra large and extrordinarily smelly poop. We remove that, instead of trying to cover it over with litter.
8. Allow the mother hen to do much of the raising herself. For example, since the mother hen will show them how to drink, you shouldn't have to dip each chick's beak into the water as you would if they were mail-order chicks. Remember that chickens are "precocial," so the chicks will very capable of independent activity very shortly after hatching. Although the hen may disagree, chicks really don't learn much from their mother that motherless chicks don't learn on their own in about the same time. On the other hand, do provide them with a stimulating environment -- space to run around, straw bales to climb on, perches to practice roosting on, occasional outings outside when the chicks are at least a month old and the weather conditions permit. I don't know for sure that it makes the chicks any smarter, but we think it helps to unleash the instinctive behavior of their wild bird ancestors and cuts down on bad behaviors, such as pecking at each other, which is common with bored birds closed in too close together. Enjoy the show, as the chicks explore their new world and the hen calls and scolds them or especially when the chicks poke out their heads from multiple locations about the hen's body. Since chicks are bonding with the mother hen, however, don't expect them to pay much attention to you.
9. Keep an eye out for weak, lame, ill, and oddly behaving chicks, and take appropriate measures. You, rather than the mother hen, may have to take care of pasty butts. Since the chicks depend on their mother's warmth for survival, make sure all the chicks who venture out can get back to her, and be sure they are tucked in with their mother at night.
10. Although I've read that you can do it almost immediately, we don't introduce a mother hen and her chicks to the rest of the flock for quite a while. We don't for two reasons. We don't trust that the hen will always be able to defend her chicks from potential attack by the other hens, and we haven't figured out any good way to feed the chicks separately from the laying hens when the two groups are integrated.
11. When the mother hen loses interest with chicks, it is time to return her to the regular flock. She may show signs she is ready for a change by trying to chase them away or just ignoring them. It usually happens after about 6 weeks, but in some cases it occurs much earlier or later. Any time after the chicks have feathered out and no longer need a heat source, it is all right to separate them from the hen. If the hen is lucky, she will be readily accepted back with her old gang, and she should quickly begin laying again.
12. When the chicks are about the same size as the adult birds, they too can be introduced to the old flock. Do it slowly, and don't expect their "mother" to recognize them or treat them special. One reason we wait so long is that when they are that size, they will be less picked upon and better able to defend themselves, but also that's about that time that the chicks are ready to consume the same feed as the adult birds. We've never lost a chicken to a hawk, and we think it might have something to do with the fact that our chicks aren't out in the open for too long or unsupervised until they are adult sized..