Controlled Natural Chick Hatch
February 12th, 2008 by Northern FarmerGlory! It seems like the brutal cold has begun to lose its grip around here and today was about ten above zero. Nice working weather today! I’m kinda hoping these cold spells start losing their punch from now on. Never before have I looked so forward to spring as I am this year and I’m really looking forward to green grass time and get these cattle out of here that we’ve been feeding since last July. That’s a long time feeding.
Its gettin time to build me some nesting boxes for those chickens we have. I’d better get on the ball and get them made, which shouldn’t be all to difficult. Last summer we were at a friends place a few miles down the road from here and I mentioned the old fashioned nesting boxes where the farm folks used to hatch out hundreds of chicks in a very controlled manner and it surprised the heck out of me, they had one in their old barn! Now it seems to me that folks nowadays have really lost allot of the old common sense wisdom that folks had years ago. In fact I’d be willing to bet that homesteading nowadays is much more hobby than anything else. And another thing that I believe, I believe that folks sometimes think that we are so smart nowadays in comparison to those folks years ago. Must be the theory of evolution deeply imprinted in folks, even many Christian folks. But I know for a fact that there were allot of smart folks on the land years past, as there still are. Years ago folks couldn’t just order chicks from a hatchery and if they raised them like what is considered homesteading by many nowadays they’d of starved to death. Things were not just left to God and nature, they managed their flocks and herds extremely well. And so much of this common sense has been near lost and even laughed at today. But rest assured, we haven’t even touched the surface of all the wisdom these folks had.
Years ago with the use of nesting boxes a household with fifteen to twenty hens could hatch out 300 to 500 chicks each year. Now it would take good old chickens like the old breeds that go broody easily such as our Partridge Rocks and any other breed that’s known for broodiness. The nest boxes kept a chicken in her own little nest with a space in front of the box with feed and water.They’d let the hens go broody by leaving the eggs in the nest until the hen laid around 15 eggs, and the hen would go to settin, this was in the main coop. Often times they’d put boiled eggs under a hen in place of fresh eggs until they had four or five hens settin at one time. Then when there was enough hens to start the process they’d come in after dark, and it had to be in the dark, they would move the hens to the nesting boxes. The right amount of eggs would be placed in every nest box before the hens were moved that night. By right amount I mean whatever she could cover with her body. They would then cover the whole box with an old sack or something to keep it kind of dark for a day or two.
They wouldn’t even open the lid on the nest box for a couple of weeks to check on her. They’d only open the front area where the put the feed and water. On hatching day when the chicks were well dried they’d take the chicks from the hens and keep them in a box in a warm place. Then after dark they’d clean out the nests of any eggs that didn’t hatch, (which wasn’t many), They’d reload the nests with eggs again with the same hens still settin except one. They’d take that one hen and put her with all the chicks that hatched out in a warm, dry place. The next day they’d move that one hen and large batch of chicks to a protected coop and after a day or two let them out to scratch.
When the next hens hatched out they would repeat the same process giving all the chicks to one hen. The hens that had been sittin for a couple rounds were released to go back into the main flock to start up laying again and after everything was all cleaned out new broody hens were picked out and the whole thing started over again. One of the main points in this process is to do all the moving of hens or putting strange chicks with a hen is that everything has to be done in the dark. Thus the hen is completely fooled. Its not very hard to see what could be accomplished on a farm using some old fashioned common sense. Let the chickens do what they were put on this earth to do.
Nowadays we get our chicks from the hatcheries, and I’ve also successfully incubated many a chick with a $30 incubator from the Fleet store. But searching around for the old wisdom sometimes brings quite the results. I’ll still order chicks from the hatcheries, but this project has been on my mind for quite some time. That’s why last summer I ordered that flock of Partridge Rocks. I can’t help but give this a whirl. Raising critters is really fairly easy, especially if you don’t have predator problems and this is one more step to really having that inner farm where a person is less dependent on the mainstream culture. That might come in handy someday. As this project continues around here I will keep readers informed on how it goes and what I think of it.
February 12th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Tom,
This is very interesting. Are there plans for the nesting boxes anyplace on the web? Having a hen to look after a bunch of chicks makes less work for me.
Jim V
February 12th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
A hen can cover 15 to 20 eggs…say 15 hatch….5 hens=75 chicks…soooo you have one hen raising 75 chicks….Let me know how that works for ya k? plus all that hen moving and shuffling in the dark. I’m not saying it won’t work..well maybe the 1 to 75 ratio won’t and forced brooding shortens a hens life (having all thoses kids plum wears a girl out) In the good old days most farms had 8 to 12 children and the older girls ,with the help of the younger children, handled the chickens.
February 13th, 2008 at 6:35 am
Jim,
The plans I have are very rough and I’ll draw my own up, although the boxes are so simple I really could just go out and make one with four or five nests per box like the one I seen and our friends place. I’ll see what I can come up with for folks out there.
Patti,
I don’t know, to me it really doesn’t seem like much work at all. As far as the hens go weather its five chicks or fifty there ain’t any more work for her, (not like she’s milkin or something
Any perceived extra work as far as the farmer or family is concerned has to be looked at realistically. Any time we buy something or do something that saves us time it usually is paid for by working at an industrial job with that same time if not a little more time in order to buy someone else’s time. Let’s say one hatch gives 50 chicks as an easy example. Chicks can currently run from around one dollar a piece all the way to three depending on what they are and where you get them. So with a money range of 50 to 150 dollars to play with as far as I can see the very little labor involved in this is handsomely rewarded. I know I’ll take care of all of it myself and I’m not worried in the least because I can see that it’s barely any work. I’ll be keeping everything updated as time goes by.
February 13th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Hello Tom,
I am the Orthodox guy. I listened to your “podcast” on Cumberland. I thought it was great, and you brought “new insights” (recovered insights) to the table. I am just a nominal agrarian right now and I hope to use some of the wisdom you give when I can get a place of my own. It was phenomenal! Thanks, God Bless!
February 13th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Hey Troy!
You just caught me in the house here for a moment, a rare thing. Thanks for the kind words on the podcast. I have to take everyone’s word for it cause I’ve never listened to it, can’t bare the thought of listening to myself. Same goes for the few times I’ve spoken in church and everything is taped, never could get the courage to listen to myself. But if it helps anyone else more power to it!
I’m gonna try and have more how to type of things here and there just so others might pick up something from things that I take for granted and sometimes figure other folks know some of it too. I’ve learned that allot of folks really haven’t experienced allot of these things so its just something to pass out there and hopefully help someone out here and there.
Thanks Again and God Bless!
February 13th, 2008 at 6:42 pm
I also find this very interesting and look forward to future post on the topic!
John
February 13th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
I’d also be interested to see a picture and/or some sort of plans for the nesting box.
Some of my favorite hens have been Partridge Rocks and Black Australorps. Nice birds to look at and to work with.
February 13th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Hi Tom,
I remember seeing an article on this in “Small Farmer’s Journal” although I don’t remember the issue. It didn’t have drawings but it did have pictures. I was also very intrugued by the concept. It seems silly to keep buying all these chicks every year. I’ll see if I can find the article.
February 14th, 2008 at 6:36 am
John,
Thanks! I love this project and will keep folks informed from time to time.
Liz,
Thanks, and we’ll take pictures as we go and post them somewhere and link them from here.
Allen,
That was the article in the summer 2006 issue, the same issue that yours truly has a letter to the editor. That’s where I got most of my information for this post. We received that issue in the later part of summer of that year and it was to late to do anything about it as far as having a battery of good clucking hens for the next spring. So it took all the way till the next summer for me to get the Partridge Rock flock and now will be the spring when all of this that was started almost two years ago comes to pass. And like I mentioned in the post, seeing the nesting boxes for real at our friends place really spurred me on. Just the thought of knowing that they did the same thing around here just drives me, it must of been more common than a person thinks.
So on we go, we have the info, we have the hens, now to slap together some nesting boxes and get us a hatch! Thanks!
February 14th, 2008 at 7:37 am
Morning Tom (again…)
Hey there is a great site for all sorts of “old school” plans at http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/abeng/buildingfacility.htm Free plans for buildings from the 1920’s to the 70’s. I think they have nestboxes in em. Hard to fit them things in my laying tractor though……
I had forgot about the “inner farm” post you did. Printed it off and everything. Inner farm is a great idea. Now I gotta go back and see why I liked it so much.
Have a doubly GREAT day,
Brad
February 14th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Morning Brad, (again….)
Hey, this is good!! Thank you sir! I’m gonna put that site on the side bar because it’s sure loaded with some of the old wisdom that this modern culture is trying to destroy! I’m thankful that NDSU has kept them and allows the public to access them. Again, thank you!
February 14th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
Brad thats a great site! I’ve already started a list of projects in my head that I could work on.
July 29th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
How has that hatching thing been going? I found this thread because I was wondering if there was some way to get the hens to do more than one hatching a year.
What podcast about what Cumberland? Just curious.