Once a hen goes broody and starts setting on eggs, it takes about 21 days for the eggs to hatch, which is the same amount of time it would take in an egg incubator. When it comes to eggs that your home flock is laying, there is some variability in how long it takes, so don’t be surprised if it takes 22 or 23 days for some of the eggs to hatch. If your hen has just begun to set What I recommend in this case is to remove the early eggs that she’s sitting on every day for a few days. This will accomplish two things: One, if she isn’t serious about setting, then she’ll get annoyed with you and s ..read more

Our Black Australorps usually to lay their first eggs at around 6-7 months of age. Several things that can affect when they start to lay: What type of food you raise them on What time of year you hatch (or purchase) them How they are raised Let’s explore several of these topics more closely. Choosing the right type of food for their age I recommend keeping your Black Australorp pullets on a non-medicated starter/grower feed until they first start to lay eggs. Then, once they start to lay eggs, switch to layer feed. Layer feed has too little protein to support proper growth of your chickens w ..read more

Once a hen goes broody and starts setting on eggs, it takes about 21 days for the eggs to hatch, which is the same amount of time it would take in an egg incubator. When it comes to eggs that your home flock is laying, there is some variability in how long it takes, so don’t be surprised if it takes 22 or 23 days for some of the eggs to hatch. If your hen has just begun to set What I recommend in this case is to remove the early eggs that she’s sitting on every day for a few days. This will accomplish two things: One, if she isn’t serious about setting, then she’ll get annoyed with you and s ..read more

Humidity level can have a big effect on the success of your hatch — your hatch rate. Start by following any instructions that came with your incubator, but keep records and improvise from there. The more you incubate and learn from your results, the better results you will be able to get. Humidity levels for incubation When hatching in a tabletop styrofoam incubator, I’ve found that I get the best results when I keep the humidity near 45% for the first 18 days of incubation. I’ve tried incubating at closer to 55% relative humidity, but far fewer eggs hatched. On Day 18 or 19, when I remove th ..read more

Our Black Australorps usually to lay their first eggs at around 6-7 months of age. Several things that can affect when they start to lay: What type of food you raise them on What time of year you hatch (or purchase) them How they are raised Let’s explore several of these topics more closely. Choosing the right type of food for their age I recommend keeping your Black Australorp pullets on a non-medicated starter/grower feed until they first start to lay eggs. Then, once they start to lay eggs, switch to layer feed. Layer feed has too little protein to support proper growth of your chickens w ..read more

It’s important to give your chickens plenty of space. Overcrowding can lead to all sorts of problems. Pecking. Aggression. Poor health. Transmission of diseases. Chickens don’t thrive in an overcrowded coop. How much space is enough? A common recommendation you’ll hear is one that is insufficient — 4 square foot per chicken. Not only is this not enough space for standard size chickens to thrive, it fails to take into account the type of housing, ventilation, the freshness of the ground or coop bedding that the chickens are on, the size and type of chicken, their activity level and other factor ..read more

Humidity level can have a big effect on the success of your hatch — your hatch rate. Start by following any instructions that came with your incubator, but keep records and improvise from there. The more you incubate and learn from your results, the better results you will be able to get. Humidity levels for incubation When hatching in a tabletop styrofoam incubator, I’ve found that I get the best results when I keep the humidity near 45% for the first 18 days of incubation. I’ve tried incubating at closer to 55% relative humidity, but far fewer eggs hatched. On Day 18 or 19, when I remove th ..read more

If you are new to raising chickens, here are several articles and other information that will be useful to you when planning your flock. Articles Planning to start your flock How many chickens should I get? How much space do chickens need? — An important question to answer when your are planning to build or buy a chicken coop. Equipment The best chicken waterers to get Egg laying How to know which hens are laying How to keep your flock productive Information about Raising Chickens In addition to this blog, other useful websites are: https://www.backyardchickens.com/ — online forum for a ..read more

It’s important to give your chickens plenty of space. Overcrowding can lead to all sorts of problems. Pecking. Aggression. Poor health. Transmission of diseases. Chickens don’t thrive in an overcrowded coop. How much space is enough? A common recommendation you’ll hear is one that is insufficient — 4 square foot per chicken. Not only is this not enough space for standard size chickens to thrive, it fails to take into account the type of housing, ventilation, the freshness of the ground or coop bedding that the chickens are on, the size and type of chicken, their activity level and other factor ..read more

Although individual laying hens can live for 10-15 years and occasionally longer, the average number of eggs that hens lay tends to drop off as they age. We have hens that are productive after 4 years of laying, and we have had hens that died at 2-3 years of age. Things vary quite a bit from one hen to the next. That’s why, when it comes to egg laying and keeping a productive flock, it makes more sense to think in terms of averages. A useful rule of thumb is that, on average, your flock will lay about 80% as many eggs with each passing year of laying as they did before. Let’s look at that in ..read more