Chicken Breeding

Breeding flocks

If you want your chickens to have chicks you need to choose a good, healthy breeding flock.

You should choose birds that are 100% healthy. Their feathers should be shiny and smooth, they should have clear eyes and nostrils.

The maximum number of hens you can have with one cock depends on the breed. . With big placid breeds like Brahmas you can normally keep two to five hens with one cock

With a light, slender, very active cock you can keep up to ten hens.

Fertilization

All hens that are to be used for breeding should be at least one year old as when they are one year of age they reach full maturity and have generally got better hatching and laying rates.

If your cock is infertile, don’t worry, as infertility whether in old or young is normally temporary. It could be that he is too fat and therefore not in good breeding condition. Also, it could have something to do with the time of year. Some cocks are active all year round and others only in the breeding season.

Mating in chickens is called treading.

An active cock is one who mates his hens a lot; a non-active cock is one who doesn’t mate them at all.

To tread a hen the cock mounts her and grips her neck feathers.

To pass sperm from cock to hen they join sex openings and the hen can then receive the sperm.

Many eggs can be fertilized by just one treading, as it is possible for the sperm to stay alive for more than ten days.

Frequently trodden hens often have bare patches on their neck and back.

HATCHING CHICKS

Egg hatching can be done with a broody hen or with an incubator.

ARTIFICIAL HATCHING
Some incubators only need water added to keep the embryos moist as they automatically turn the eggs, whereas with a more basic incubator you need to turn the eggs yourself. It is helpful to mark the eggs with a cross on one side and a circle on the other so that you know which eggs you have turned and which still need turning.
Eggs should be turned over the pointed end three times a day so that the embryos don’t stick to the shell.

It is best to place the eggs with the tip pointing inwards. Once the eggs have been put in leave the incubator lid on all the time unless you are turning the eggs. There should be two water compartments in the middle. Fill one of them up but leave the other.

Eight days into the incubation period it is useful to find out if an egg is fertilized. So you can find out using a candling lamp, a specialist lamp that you can buy either from incubator specialists or an animal feeds merchant. Candling lamps should be used in a dark spot. Hold the lamp against the egg. If you see a dark spot that moves away from the light, you’ve got a live embryo. If you see a spot of blood it could either be a dead embryo or an infertile egg (in which case the spot of blood is probably the ‘meat spot’ which is caused by the rupture of a blood vessel during its formation in the hen.)  All infertile (clear) or dead (blood ring, blood spot, dark ‘thing’ sticking to the shell,) eggs should be thrown away (probably better on the compost).

Two days before the chicks are due, stop moving the eggs and fill the second compartment with water to aid hatching.
Be patient ,as hatching can take as long as two days, so if they are a day too early or too late don’t worry.
There are two membranes in an egg, one inside the shell and the other around the chick.
When hatching, the chick rolls around and takes the yolk sacks and blood vessels inside it. Some people help the chicks that have difficulty while others are strongly against it, for they say if the chick is weak it should be left to destiny.
If you think any of your chicks are weak do not try to help them out by cracking the shell in any place because if they have not done their rolling
antics, it makes it all even harder.
For twenty-four hours after hatching chicks can live without food. It is best to leave the chicks in the incubator until they are totally dry.

Your chicks may start lying around in strange positions because they need to rest and they don’t know immediately how to lie properly. Once they are totally dry, carefully put them into a box with shallow sawdust, a very shallow bowl of water and a shallow rimmed food tray. They should have an infra red lamp and a shelter under the lamp where they can get warmth and shade.
Eventually the chicks will get the hang of standing and grooming.

Broodiness

Having a broody hen has many advantages.

Whereas a hen can teach her chicks how to survive, an incubator is just a humming machine. Silver shadow (SS) and his sister (see my experiences page) set a good example. SS and his sister always wait outside their house and they rely on humans to put them in their coop. They have met their mum and dad but they don’t know that they are related.

How to recognise Broodiness

• A broody hen sits on the nest for long periods of time sometimes refusing to leave it
• Being aggressive to other hens or her handler
• Certain parts of the abdomen and breast become featherless ( ‘brood patches’)

NATURAL HATCHING
Using a broody hen to hatch eggs is an easy option, for all you have to do is wait.
It is best to separate a broody hen from the rest as otherwise other hens will come and lay more and more eggs and they will get mixed up and your hen
will sit on way too many eggs.
Keeping two ore more broodies in the same cage is no good either as they will steal each other’s eggs.
Broody hens should have food and water at all times.