Raising Egg Laying Chickens

Laying Chickens and Hatching Chickens

Raising Egg Laying Chickens

Raising egg laying chickens is easy if all you want is eggs to eat, but raising chickens that hatch fertilized eggs is a little more complicated. For one thing, you’ll need a rooster, which is typically not allowed in urban settings. If you’ve got a rooster, your hen will do all the work.

Laying chickens know how to hatch their own chicks, and left undisturbed will do so. You really only need to make sure that the hen is leaving her nest to eat and drink once per day, and that she’s not defecating on her eggs. While not all chickens are inclined to “go broody” and sit on eggs for three weeks, the chickens that do don’t need any help.

On the other hand, if you’re interested in hatching fertilized eggs that you’ve bought, you’ll need some tools. Raising egg laying chickens starting with eggs can make a great science project, and it’s fun! While this has more room for disaster than just buying chicks, if you’re trying to get a rare breed of chicken this may be your only option. Even if you don’t succeed, you’ll likely learn a lot about the chicken life cycle!

Hatching Chickens

Hatching chickens is a matter of imitating what the hen would do herself. You need to keep the eggs warm, and you need to rotate them. You can buy an incubator at many online chicken supplies outlets and chicken hatcheries. The temperature in the incubator needs to be a consistent 101.5 degrees.

You also need to monitor the humidity in the incubator: for the first 18 days, you need the humidity to be between 50 and 60 percent. For the last three days, the humidity should reach 65 to 70 percent. During those first eighteen days, you will also need to rotate the eggs three times per day. For the last three days, the eggs should not be disturbed.

Once the eggs have hatched, you can keep the chicks in another cardboard box with a light bulb, this time making sure the bottom of the box is kept soft with a towel or fir shavings.

You will gradually decrease the temperature of the box until the chicks are ready to face the world. However, if you’re putting them in with other chickens, be sure to have a space prepared when the older chickens cannot harass the chicks. Without a mother hen to protect them, the chicks will be highly threatened by older hens.

Chicken Raising

If you’re interested in chicken raising, it’s important to have everything set up beforehand. Before you get the eggs you’re going to hatch, you need to have the incubator set up, turned on and tested. You also need to set up the place you’ll be keeping the chicks for the first six weeks of their lives.

Before they can go outside, they’ll need a chicken coop out there! And of course, you’ll need food, nesting boxes, feeders, and other little supplies that go with having chickens. Chicken raising is relatively simple because chickens are hardy, and raising egg laying chickens is no more difficult than other chickens. However, if you’re not ready for the chickens, they’ll suffer for your lack of preparation.

Chicken raising is all about getting started. Once you’ve got everything in place, you really only need to feed and clean up after your chickens. You will rarely experience a problem with them, and they’ll provide you with eggs for years. So, plan ahead for future success!

Laying Chickens

Laying chickens are a great investment, but you cannot depend on laying chickens to go broody and hatch eggs on their own. They can, of course, lay fertilized eggs, but they won’t often sit on them to make them hatch. This is a product of breeding and domestication, and you can make up for this by hatching their eggs yourself.

Alternatively, you can keep at least one chicken that you know will go broody and simply place the fertilized eggs of other chickens where she lays her eggs. She will lay eggs that you can eat, just like any other egg laying chicken, but she’ll also actually sit on her eggs to hatch them. Silkies and Marans are both great breeds for this purpose.

Letting a chicken raise your chicks will integrate them better into an established flock. It will also be less of an expense for you. In any case, no matter how you hatch them, having a regenerating flock is one of the most rewarding aspects of raising egg laying chickens. When your chickens only need you to provide them with sustenance and shelter, you’re getting the maximum amount of value out of your flock!

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