Broody Hen or Incubator?

If you just read the title of this blog and wondered, “what the heck is a broody hen?” then you’ve come to the right place. Let’s start there!

A broody hen is a female chicken that has a strong urge to sit on and incubate a clutch of eggs in order to hatch them into chicks. In other words, she is expressing her desire to become a mama by getting very protective of her (and other hens') eggs and may become aggressive towards other chickens or humans who try to approach her. Broodiness is a natural instinct for hens and can be triggered by a variety of factors, including temperature, light, and hormone levels.

Going back even one step further, people sometimes sheepishly ask me “do you have to have a rooster in order to get eggs?” You do not. Eggs are formed in the hen’s ovary and then, if all factors are optimal, they lay them on a roughly daily cycle. This cycle is affected by many factors and is rarely 100% optimal. But, what’s important is (1) hens will lay eggs without a rooster, (2) those eggs cannot turn into chicks unless they were fertilized by a rooster (yes, we’re talking about chicken sex… didn’t think we’d take that turn, did you?) and kept warm for 21 days straight, and (3) the hen does not know whether her egg is fertilized or not. In short, a broody hen can be aggressively protecting unfertilized eggs that will never, ever become a chicken.

So, the question we are trying to explore is this: Is it better for a broody hen to hatch chicks or to use an incubator to hatch them? The answer on our farm is always the broody hen.

The obvious downside of using a broody hen to incubate eggs is that you can neither force a hen to go broody nor can you predict when she will (though it usually happens in late spring/early summer). So, if you really need to add chickens to your flock on a particular timeline, you may wish to explore buying an incubator.

That being said, we very much prefer using a broody hen to hatch eggs, the way nature intended. First, we make certain we don’t waste the hen’s time on unfertilized eggs by using or purchasing "rooster exposed" eggs (and yes, they are easy to purchase online if you’re not sure about your own rooster). Twenty-one days is a long time to sit on a nest only to find out that they are all unfertilized.

The advantages of hatching with a broody hen are many. First, there’s a lot happening on the farm. We don’t have a lot of time to raise baby chicks. Second, I have not officially asked the chicks, but I’m guessing that they likely prefer being raised by their own species. Third, the hen is telling us she wants to be a mama… who are we to stop her? And, finally, mama hens teach their chicks all the things that we humans cannot (how to hunt and peck for food, how to give yourself a dust bath, how to roost at night, etc.). Yes, some of those things are instinctual, but there are few things cuter than watching a hen educate her little ones.

In short, when we see the signs of broodiness in our hens, we view it as opportunistic. It is natural, allows the chicks to experience a maternal bond, allows the hen to experience motherhood, and reduces our time and costs.