There are two methods of hatching eggs produced by backyard free-range hens.
One is to allow the hens to sit on their eggs (or other hens’) for 21 days which is the natural way of hatching.
The other is by using incubators powered by electricity with two components – the sitter and the hatcher.
For a small farm operation, natural hen hatching is still the best because the farmer does not have to continuously check or monitor the temperature of the incubators.
At saka maski mag brown out, tuloy pa rin ang pagpipisa ng sisiw.
The only drawback with hen hatching is that it renders the hen unproductive for almost two months as she has to sit on her eggs for 21 days and rear her chicks for about a month.
Also, the hatching would depend largely on when the hen will get broody and sit on her eggs, thus the hatching schedule is not consistent.
This could also affect the immunization program because the chicks do not come in large batches.
Effectively, the farmer loses about 30 eggs in production and the prospect of producing at least 15 chicks during the two-month inactivity.
The incubator is still the most practical option for big farm operations with over 200 hens because it allows the farmer to schedule when to hatch the eggs.
In my farm, since we are producing over 300 eggs a day, we use incubators and we load the eggs every seven days, although we have reduced this to five days now.
Loading eggs beyond 7 days adversely affects the hatching rate of the eggs since we do not have an egg storage room.
From the 7th to the 10th day, the eggs are candled and those which are either infertile or which did not develop an embryo are taken out.
On the 18th day, the eggs are transferred from the incubator to the hatcher where the chicks will break out from the shells and they are taken out and transferred to the brooder on the 22nd day.
After each cycle, the incubators and hatchers are thoroughly cleaned with disinfectant to ensure that the next batch of eggs to be loaded are protected from dirt and bacteria.
This is a very critical practice which must never be taken for granted or overlooked.
It could spell the difference between producing healthy chicks and sickly and weak biddies.
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