A Simple Guide to Managing Village Poultry in South Africa/Breeding and Hatching

Breeding and Hatching

Illustration: Susan Powell

You must watch which hens produce many eggs; how well do they sit on their eggs; how well do they raise their chicks, so that you can choose those hens that make the best mothers. Keep the pullets (new young hens) for your flock from those mothers with these characteristics.

Keep those hens that produce strong chicks that are fast growing for meat and those that grow to a large size. The large, fast-growing chicks are usually the male birds (cockerels) and are best to eat.

Hens should be mated to these large cockerels. You will need 2 cockerels for 10 pullets. Sell or eat the male chickens that do not grow well. Do not keep them for breeding.

It is a good idea from time to time to swap one or two cockerels and a few hens with your distant neighbours, to reduce inbreeding. That is to stop fathers and daughters, and mothers and sons from mating with one another. This inbreeding causes poor growth and fewer eggs from their chicks.

Get rid of any birds that are not laying well (See Section III later). They are eating your food and producing nothing.

Provide a separate nest well off the ground for the broody hens who want to hatch their eggs in the hen house. This could be a woven basket. Put in a layer of dried grass, then some sand and finally a layer of straw or thatch grass. The eggs will not then break easily and many chicks should hatch out.

Illustration: Susan Powell

The nest should be placed in a dark, quiet corner and away from roosting (sleeping) birds in the hen house. Water and feed should be given regularly to the broody hen who is sitting on the eggs. Chicks will hatch out after 21 days. Remove all eggs that are laid each day. When a good hen goes broody put no more than 6 to 8 fresh eggs under her to hatch. Hens can only raise a very few chicks successfully. The eggs should be from those hens that produce many eggs, or whose chicks grow quickly into heavy meat birds (see points 1 & 2 above).

Not every hen that goes broody should be given eggs to sit on but only the good mothers. If you put a broody hen by herself in a cage hung up in the shade for 4 – 5 days with food and water, she will stop being broody and will start to lay more eggs.