We have hens for eggs. In the past we did a combination of buying day old chicks and encouraging broody hens to hatch out a clutch of chicks. A few years back the price of day old chicks straight run (a mixture of male and females – it’s cheaper) rose to nearly $4 per chick! Ken got serious about setting up a successful breeding situation. Last summer he had a series of batches of chicks so that we did not have to buy any chicks.
In our experience the chicks with a mom do better – it really helps to have someone looking out for the babies and showing them the ropes. So we now have our fourth batch of chicks this summer with hens sitting on more eggs.
Great work, Ken!
