How to Hatch Your Own Chicks

The lazy way… without an incubator

Let me start by saying I have read many articles about how best to hatch your own eggs. There are steps and supplies and an exact science to it that’s kind of intimidating. I even purchased an incubator and tried unsuccessfully to keep the eggs turned and the humidity right.

It seemed like there were too many opportunities to mess up and then I was left with fertilized eggs that started to develop but never survived long enough to hatch.

I’ve been raising chickens for about ten years now, so I feel like I have experienced just about everything that an amateur chicken farmer (if that’s a thing) can experience, including having broody hens sit on eggs.

In fact, sometimes, I feel like I spend the whole summer shooing my free-range broody hens off there stashed eggs. So, a couple of years ago, I decided to let nature take its course and see what happened.

I have many sad stories to tell of the pitfalls of letting hens hatch there own eggs, but through those experiences, hopefully, I can help you avoid some of the same.

Now, my chick raising theory is to let nature takes its course whenever possible.

If you’re like me, you are raising chickens for eggs, entertainment, and bug-control so I don’t want to make a career out of trying to hatch a few chicks. That being said, I hate to lose a single chick. I have too tender of a heart for fluffy, little, cute bitties and I blame myself whenever something happens to them.

So, here are the steps I have found work for me, along with some pointers to help you avoid chick casualties.

1. Provide shelter for your hens.

Whether your hens are in a pen all the time, free-range, or half and half, they need a safe place to lay their eggs. This becomes much more tricky, although not impossible if they are free-range. In fact, my most successful chick hatching was a result of my free-range girls laying some eggs in my raised beds. The beds have high sides so it became the perfect place for nests.

One day I went out and realized two hens were sitting in the same raised bed on several eggs. When they didn’t get back in the pen where I close the rest of them up every night, I worried that they would be raccoon bait. So, the next day, I made a roof/lid for the raised beds out of some leftover wood, chicken wire, and tin. That provided shelter from rain and sun, and protection from predators. It was also important that I could open and close the top to give them fresh food and water, so, I hinged it for easy access.

This wasn’t pretty, but it was an easy solution and I didn’t have to try and move hens and eggs, which I’ve heard is hit or miss.

If your chickens have a set place in a pen that they lay already, I would recommend placing milk cartons there. That way, if you need to move the sitting hen and eggs to separate them from your other chickens, it can be easily done. Make sure to do it at night time when they are sleeping. Don’t shine a light on them and move the whole crate into another small coop. Even a dog crate would work if you reinforced it with hardware cloth.

Chickens sit on their eggs for 21 days before they hatch, so, once they start sitting, I would do any moving you are going to do as soon as possible. This way you don’t risk the hen leaving fully developed eggs before they hatch and the chicks dying.

2. Keep your hens and eggs healthy

I don’t know about the rest of the country, but here where I live in North Florida, the very worst threat to eggs, hens and baby chicks is fire ants.

If you don’t take any other advice, the most important thing I have learned is to regularly sprinkle around and in the nest with diatomaceous earth or DE as you may see it written online. I get the kind that says it is food-grade. It is all-natural and completely safe for hens and chicks. This will kill ants and prevent them from attacking as soon as the eggs start hatching.

My very first time letting chickens hatch their own eggs, I was not aware of this problem and I lost several chicks to ants before they were even able to hatch completely. Since then, I start sprinkling the DE on and around the eggs.

Even though hens won’t eat or drink much while they’re sitting on eggs, it is important to keep food and water available. Make sure that before it is time for the eggs to hatch, you switch any water container out for a chick waterer. Otherwise, you risk chicks drowning in the water container.

3. Be prepared for chicks

If you wait until the chicks start hatching to have their shelter prepared, you risk having to rush around like a crazy person (on a Saturday, between your daughter’s softball games).

But seriously, 21 days is a long time. Make sure before it is over, you have a chick waterer, chick feed and some way to keep little chicks from getting out of the coop and away from their mom. This might just look like pieces of cardboard or hardware cloth surrounding the bottom inside of a chicken-wire coop or large dog crate.

I also recommend having a heat lamp ready, even though mom is going to keep the chicks at the right temperature. It is nice to have another heat source available to them if mom wants to get away from her chicks or something happens to her.

Make sure they have plenty of bedding such as pine chips or hay, ventilation, and shelter from the elements, including heat and sun.

4. Grow out the chicks

You would think that this step would not sneak up on me, but it usually does. There comes a point when you may realize that whatever place you have your hen and chicks in is getting too small. They might be annoyed with each other or just crowded. At this time you need to have a growing out coop ready.

I just bought one of the small coops you find online that says it is suitable for 3–4 adult hens, but you can definitely build one a lot cheaper yourself. Remember chicks may be able to get their heads stuck in chicken wire. It will need to have smaller wire, like hardware cloth, at least around the bottom foot of the coop.

At some point, when the chicks are around 8 weeks old, mom is going to start distancing herself. If you give them any free-range time, this may be when you can decide to let her start roosting back with the other adult chickens. Then keep the chicks in their grow-out pen at night time.

Soon, they will start roosting up off the ground and they will be ready to join the other chickens too.