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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Hatching your own

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Harvey Ussery <huboxwood@earthlink.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Hatching your own
  • Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 15:43:16 +0000

Any hen will set. It is in their nature to reproduce. . . . Most hen hatched
chicks turn out more pullets than
roosters . . . You will need to separate the mother hen
and her chicks from the other chickens.

Art in Arkansas

1) By definition, it is in their nature to reproduce--but actually, the broody trait has been largely bred out of most modern breeds. (If you make going broody a capital offense, doesn't take long for the hens to get the point!) To be sure, you will always find an oddball in any breed who retains the trait--last year one of my Silver Spangled Hamburgs went determinedly broody, wouldn't normally expect that, not only in that breed but in the whole non-setting Mediterranean, "egg specialist" class. But if you want reliably broody hens, I recommend going back to the historic breeds, among whom broodiness is the norm, not the exception.

2) The gender of the chick is determined even before the female germ cell is released from the ovary, thus even before fertilization by the cock's sperm. Thus it is certainly determined by the time the egg is laid, and from that point the ratio of males to females (as in humans, not exactly 1:1, but awfully close) is set, and how the eggs are hatched--natural or artificial--is irrelevant to gender ratio.

3) Actually there is no need to separate the hen and her clutch from the rest of the flock--mama will certainly kick butt for anybody rash enough to mess with her chicks--with this proviso: Young growing chicks must not eat layer mash feeds, doing so can seriously compromise their development, particularly of the reproductive systems. Among chickens eating a more natural diet, this is not a problem. I have my chicks with mamas running with the main flock all the time, no problem. I have devised a "creep feeder" that permits feeding the young ones more protein-rich foods, while excluding the adults.

My article on working with broody hens starts at

http://themodernhomestead.us/poultry/broodies_find.html

I recently wrote an update for Backyard Poultry, their June-July issue.

~Harvey
--
Harvey in northern Va
www.themodernhomestead.us




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