Hatching Eggs With a Broody Hen (Hatching Chicken Eggs Naturally for Fun or Profit)
Wondering how to hatch eggs without using an incubator? Hatching eggs with a broody hen is easy and rewarding!
Hatching Chicken Eggs Naturally
We’ve all had one, that persistently broody hen that won’t even lay eggs and sits in the nesting box day and night shrieking at anyone that comes near. While a broody hen can be annoying, she can also be a great way to add some new chicks to your flock each year, or even make a little money to help pay for your feed.
In this article, you’ll learn exactly how to start hatching eggs with a broody hen!
Although I do own a cheap incubator, I prefer hatching chicks under a mama hen. It’s a lot less work than constantly trying to remember to check the settings and adjust the humidity in an incubator, and turning the eggs 3-5 times a day if you don’t have a turner! I usually have a higher hatch rate using a broody hen than an incubator.
New chicks are also less maintenance when they have a mom to take care of them, keep them warm and teach them how, and what, to eat and drink.
I have hatched out as many as 65 chicks a year just under broody hens: plenty to replenish my flock, sell some to pay for my feed, and have some young roosters left over to raise for meat.
Hatching Eggs With a Broody Hen
While many hens will go broody off and on in the spring and summer, for hatching chicks you want a hen that will stick with it the whole 21 days and actually hatch out her chicks, not just give up partway. A hen that continues sitting on a nest day and night, even after you remove the eggs, is a good bet. She will growl when anyone gets too close.
Any breed that has gone seriously broody can be used to hatch out chicks. If you are looking to add a few broody hens to your flock, breeds most likely to go broody include Buff Orpingtons (my favorite!), Cochins, Silkies, Brahmas and many bantam breeds.
My best mama hen ever that hatched multiple clutches of eggs in a year was actually a Barred Rock, a breed that does not very often go broody. I’ve also hatched eggs under Phoenix and Easter Egger hens. Breeds least likely to go broody include most commercial hybrids and lighter laying breeds.
The Buff Orpingtons from McMurray have been the most reliable at hatching eggs for me, and I always keep some in my flock just for that purpose.
You can find more recommended breeds for hatching eggs with a broody hen here.
If you don’t already have a broody hen, sometimes other chicken keepers will give away broody hens if they don’t want to hatch eggs.
Selecting Eggs for Hatching
A hen doesn’t need to hatch her own eggs, you can give her any eggs you choose.
In order for eggs to be fertile, the hen needs to have been exposed to a rooster within the last 1 1/2-2 weeks.
Eggs for hatching should be less than two weeks old; fresher eggs will have the highest hatch rate. Eggs that are going to be hatched should be stored at room temperature with the blunt ends up. If you have a slightly cooler place to store them, that’s even better, but they should not be refrigerated!
Don’t wash eggs intended for hatching.
Hatching Purebred Chicken Eggs From a Mixed Flock
Most chicken breeds will happily cross with each other, giving you a “barnyard mix” if you hatch those eggs. These mixed breed chickens can make some of the best layers, but are harder to market if you want to sell your extras.
You may want to separate out the rooster and hens you want to save eggs from. Or, an easier option to get purebred hatching eggs is to only keep roosters of a single breed that lays a color of eggs different from the rest of your flock.
For example, you might have hens that lay blue, light brown, dark brown and white eggs, but your rooster is from the breed that lays light brown eggs. That way when you save the light brown eggs for hatching, you know that they are purebreds.
This year, all in the same coop I had Buff Orpingtons (light brown eggs), Red Sex-Links (light brown eggs), Andalusians (white eggs), Easter Eggers (blue eggs) and Silver Laced Wyandottes (darker brown eggs), but my roosters were both Easter Eggers.
Since the only roosters in the pen were Easter Eggers, I knew that when I collected the blue eggs for hatching they would be purebred Easter Eggers (or as purebred as Easter Eggers get; you can read here about the difference between an Easter Egger and an Ameraucana and why most chicks labeled as Ameraucanas are really Easter Eggers).
How to Hatch Eggs with a Broody Hen
Getting Your Hen to Actually Stay on the Eggs
I’ve had the best luck getting my hens to stay on their eggs when they are contained in a small space such as a large dog crate. I’ve also used hay bales to make nesting spots in different corners of my barn, which works fine once the hen decides to stay there, but can take a lot of repetition putting her back on the nest.
When using a dog crate, I put a shallow 12″x12″ cardboard box in the back of the crate with some hay in it. I place food and water for the hen in the front of the crate.
A chicken tractor or small pen is even better for hatching eggs with a broody hen.
How Many Eggs Can a Broody Hen Sit On?
An average large breed hen can sit on about 14 eggs.
The eggs should all fit completely underneath her. A hen will rotate the eggs underneath her, changing which side is facing up throughout the day and also moving theĀ eggs around to different positions underneath her. If the are eggs sticking out because there are too many underneath her, they can get too cold and won’t hatch right.
If you are hatching valuable eggs, you might want to start your hen with a clutch of artificial eggs (you’ll find a link to purchase artificial eggs at the bottom of this page!), replacing them with good eggs once she has stayed on the nest for 1-2 days.
Getting a Broody Hen to Stay on the Eggs
When hatching eggs with a broody hen, getting her to stay on the eggs can be a challenge. Some mama hens are naturally better at this than others.
Sometimes, I find my hens are more likely to set if I give them the eggs right in their nesting box to start with. I mark the eggs with an X so they don’t get mixed up if another hen sneaks in a lays an egg in that nesting box.
Leave the hen in the nesting box overnight or longer to make sure those mothering instincts have set in, then move her eggs to the area you have set up and quietly set her next to her eggs where she can see them. Leave her alone and try to minimize disturbances. Hopefully, she will settle right down and start incubating those eggs!
If you are having a hard time getting your hen to stay on the eggs, consider moving her to a quieter place, or somewhere where she is more comfortable, such as a pen right next to or inside your main chicken coop.
If all else fails, you can let her set the whole time inside a nesting box. The downsides to this method are that other birds will climb in there and disturb her. Her eggs are more likely to get broken, and you will need to check every day to remove any new eggs that were laid in there (make sure the original eggs have some kind of X or mark on them).
Nevertheless, I have successfully hatched a few batches of eggs this way. You’ll need to move her to a separate pen as soon as her eggs start hatching so the chicks don’t tumble out of the nesting box. While not ideal, it’s still a valid method of hatching eggs with a broody hen!
The Wait
When hatching eggs with a broody hen, the hen does most of the work.
Once your hen sets (settles down on the eggs to stay), all you need to do is make sure she has food and water right outside her nest. Chicken eggs take 21 days to hatch, while turkeys and most ducks take 28.
It’s normal for the hen to get off the nest and stretch her legs 2-3 times a day. She shouldn’t leave the nest for more than 10-20 minutes at a time, though.
Candling Eggs
Optionally, you can candle the eggs at 7 and 14 days to remove any that are infertile or have died. I always candle eggs I am artificially incubating, but when hatching eggs with a broody hen this is optional.
Eggs are candled by holding the blunt end to a flashlight in a dark room. A properly developing egg will have a network of veins starting at around 1 week incubation. Later on you might just see a dark mass. Often you can see the chick moving inside the egg! An infertile egg will show just the round shadow of a yolk or nothing at all, while an egg that has died will have a red ring around the outside of the egg.
White eggs are the easiest to candle. Dark brown or blue eggs are harder to candle and may just look dark inside.
If all goes well, your eggs should start to hatch after 20-21 days. A normal hatch rate from 14 eggs is 7-12 chicks.
Aren’t they just adorable?
Chicks that have a mama just need food and water, and a place safe from predators. They don’t need a heat lamp unless you have unusually cold weather.
Happy hatching,
-Kait
PS: You can find a list of best breeds for hatching eggs in our Find a Chicken Breed section!
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