Hatching Chicks..... The story of Handsome Harry

Poultry keeping the fun way.

So, you’ve got one rather stroppy cockerel and 4 hens, and you’re desperate for just one of the hens to go broody but nothing happens. Solution? As birthday approaches, scatter copies of Practical Poultry liberally around house, drop enormous hints to nearest and dearest, interspersed with mournful shakings of head and wistful sighs, and hey presto! Gift-wrapped mini incubator materialises on said day.
Our book told us to candle the eggs so we did, but not with a candle. With a torch and a loo roll inner tube cellotaped on the end. In a darkened room, we shone the light onto the broad end of the egg and found a dark circular area. It’s an air sac and means the egg is fertile.
So three eggs went into our incubator which we set up in the spare bedroom where they could be left in peace. We set the programme, filled the water compartment and off they went. 21 days in a little humid pod with the occasional hum as they were turned at regular intervals.
Of course, we padded in and out at least 20 times a day for the duration to stare at them, check the water level, wonder if it was working, until one day we thought we heard cheeping. No sign of a crack on any of the eggs but one was definitely cheeping. And within hours, there was tapping and the odd egg wobble until a star-shaped crack appeared on one and then on another and we were off! Eventually, all three were battling their way out of their shells. Here’s the last one about four hours into the adventure.

It takes ages and is sorely tempting to stick your finger in there and give them a hand but you shouldn’t. Opening the lid lets vital heat out. Another couple of hours of huffing and puffing, twitching and straining and the shell begins to yawn open.

It’s not pretty but he’s getting there! (Yes, it’s a he. We may come back to that…)

And several more hours later, after a mammoth effort, da daaah! One exhausted chick, with fetching eggshell hairpiece.

Before long, he’s fluffed up nicely. And ready to eat cake, apparently.

When they were fluffed up and perky, we transferred them into our state of the art, high-tech Chick Development Unit.

Yes, it does look like an old banana box from Morrisons. Built in air vents though, and we set up a light bulb in the corner covered by another little cardboard box for heat, newspaper and sawdust in the bottom. And an old sock or two because we were fretting about drafts. They ate some chick mash and eventually tiny bits of apple, lettuce, mashed potato. At night, we put a lid on and they snuggled up against the light box.
Not house proud, are they?

As they got bigger, and noisier, we moved them out of the kitchen and into a run in the garage. It was a bit chilly so we rigged up a light to keep them warm.They need cleaning out almost daily, (dust pan and brush will do the job). Gradually, they moved on to crushed corn and more soft fruit and veg leftovers and at about 8 – 10 weeks, were ready to go outside.
All very easy and great fun. We’ve done it a few times now and the only down side has been a predominance of cockerels. Eventually, one or two hens did go broody and they produced a lot of cockerels too. Here’s one of them.

Handsome Harry.