People rear chickens in the backyard of their homes for variety of reasons. Besides taking us closer to nature, maintaining a chicken farm at home gives us as much sense of achievement as growing vegetables in the garden. It is also entertaining to watch chickens moving around in the garden. It will give a lot of satisfaction and happiness, if one visualizes that it is chickens that give fresh eggs for breakfast all through the year.

However, in order to ensure sound health for chickens and optimize production of eggs, certain conditions such as quality of poultry feed and weight of the hens need to be fulfilled. In addition, the output of eggs also depends considerably on the duration of sunlight that is available daily. Chickens will, normally, start laying eggs anytime from twentieth to twenty-first weeks and keep on laying eggs for a little more than a year.

The quantity of eggs and their sizes will be optimum during this period. One can ensure the health of egg-laying hens and the number of eggs that they lay by providing requisite quantum of light. Sunshine speeds up the production of eggs. In other words, as the daytime increases so also the yield of eggs.

This explains why there is a natural rise in production of eggs between December 21 and June 21 and thereafter, shows a gradual decline from June21 till December 21, when production of eggs picks up again.

In order to ensure that hens get enough light even during the months when there is less sunshine, it is necessary to provide electrical connection to the ‘coop house’ that one constructs for the chickens. This way, there will not be any dearth for eggs anytime during the year.

One can switch on the light in the coop house as the daylight wears out, thereby ensuring that the light is provided to chickens ranging from 16 to 17 hours daily. It is ideal to adopt this method progressively, compensating for the fading natural sunlight during reduced daytime. This method may boost up the production of eggs by 20 to 30 percent as compared to the production when additional lighting is not provided in the coop house.

The general principle is not to provide bright light on growing birds and not reduce light on adult egg-laying hens. Some of the tips on a good lighting arrangement include:

1. Provision of lighting for appropriate duration daily;

2.ensuring minimum intensity of light; and

3. usage of recommended color.

For best results, the egg-laying hens should have adequate light ranging from 16 to 17 hours every day. The lighting should be sufficiently bright so that it is possible to see clearly the level of feeds while standing over the feeder. The ideal color of light is either yellow or orange tint. These shades can be easily obtained if incandescent bulbs are used.

Another option is to use either ‘warm-white’ fluorescent tube light or a halogen light that emits a yellowish tinge of light. A well planned chicken coop house will make it simpler to create a favorable atmosphere for hens to be comfortable and healthy. Lighting is one of the most important factors to get eggs from the hens regularly.

Another critical factor is to ensure good health for chickens. A properly designed coop house will safeguard hens from numerous hazards such as ‘predation’, theft, direct sunlight, rain, wind, heat, cold, extreme dust and abrupt changes in temperature.

In order to derive maximum pleasure, the inside of the chicken coop house should be planned in such a way that feeding and looking after chickens are simple and secured. A well planned and easy to maintain chicken coop house will give immense satisfaction of maintaining chickens in the backyard of the house.

There is more to keeping chickens than fresh eggs for breakfast! There is nothing more gratifying, for those maintaining poultry as a hobby, than hatching chicken eggs and observing as the new arrivals grow and mature into adult hens.

Production of chicken eggs is a very simple and even any chicken keeper with very little experience can do it. There are, mainly, two methods of hatching chicken, either allow brooding hens to follow the natural process or hatch them artificially in an incubator.

The main worry when someone begins this task is to ensure that the breeding stock is healthy. This can be ensured by keeping them in a well-designed, protected and cozy coop house. They should be kept in such an environment where they are free from any strain or disorder. It is also critical to protect brooding hens from predators and pests.

Even any intrusion from rodents may tempt the hen to emerge from the nest and in that process, the developing eggs may rapidly cool and die. For better protection, it is essential to have a ‘roosting box’ inside the coop house together with proper bedding in which brooding chicken can form a nest.

Acclimatization of hens is the next vital aspect that one should put in place. This should be initiated well before gathering any eggs for hatching. In order to ensure that chickens are in robust health and the peak breeding condition, they should be fed with the superior quality chicken meal and allowed to move around in clean area for rubbing and grazing.

Chickens will also get a lot of supplementary nutrition through insects and worms when they graze in open field. It is important that the diet of egg laying hens contain fairly good amount of calcium. An insufficient calcium in egg laying hens can cause ‘egg binding’, an agonizing condition for the hens and will result in their death, if not treated in time.

The hens can also get calcium as nutritional supplement through the drinking water or by blending calcium powder with feed. Although well nourished and carefully looked after chickens will not require nutritional supplements, it is still worthwhile adding them to the chickens’ feed. All these measures are of no use if there is no ‘healthy cockerel’ among the fowls to ensure that the eggs laid are good and feasible.

Even though it is apparent, many persons not familiar with maintaining chickens overlook the fact that without a cock, the eggs will not be productive. If one does not have a cock among the flock, it would be prudent to include one, though the neighbors may not like to be woken up by him early in the morning!

The current trend is for people in towns and cities to have chickens in coop houses in their backyard. This type of maintaining chickens is called ‘urban chicken farming’. However those living in congested areas, excessive noises disturb chickens and therefore, in such a situation, it may not be possible to breed them.

In addition, regulations imposed in certain cities specifically prohibit keeping a cock in the area. It is, therefore, important to check with local authorities before setting up a ‘chicken farm’ in the backyard of the house. Another important aspect to consider before taking a decision on hatching chicken eggs is to know what one is going to do with the hatched and fully grown chickens.

If the intention is keep them, it is essential to provide additional space for new chickens on the basis of norms for space requirements or plan to extend the existing coop house. Alternatively, one should look for a suitable shelter for them. One should decide about this aspect before actually taking up breeding from hens.

Those who want a hen to hatch eggs should set up a ‘nursery’ in a separate enclosure. If the mother hen is not separated, there is a danger of either chickens or eggs getting damaged or eaten by other hens. In spite of taking adequate precautions, using a hen for hatching is quite risky. Instead it is better to use an incubator.

However, prior to placing eggs in the incubator, it is important to make sure that the incubator and its accessories, such as, preferably an automatic egg turner, candler, a particular light installed to view through the eggs to watch as they develop, and water and temperature gauge are in good condition and there is proper power connection to the incubator.

Although market is flooded with extensive range of incubators, it is better to buy a good incubator that is equipped with a water tray at the bottom to retain proper humidity, an egg turner that avoids manual turning and a fan for good circulation of air and maintaining a constant temperature. It is always necessary to wear gloves when handling eggs.

Here are various steps involved in incubation process:

Day 1

As eggs have a protective coating on them, they should never be washed. If they are washed, there is a danger of contracting disease. In order to monitor desired temperature, it is essential to ensure that the incubator has been operating for at least 24 hours.

If an automatic turner is not used, it is better to place the eggs with the same mark appearing. The same procedure can be followed even when an incubator provided with automatic turner is used. In any case, there is no need to touch eggs for 18 days. If the incubator is provided with a fan, the temperature can be reduced by 2 degrees.

In most of the poultry incubators, the temperature is adjusted at 37 degrees for fan and 40 degrees, if there is no fan. All eggs should be kept in the eggs trays with the point facing downwards. The majority of incubators are provided with instructions regarding adding water to maintain the correct humidity level.

There is no need to maintain high humidity till 3 days from hatching. It is better to have a calendar on the wall near the incubator so that the desired dates are marked on it properly. These dates should be reviewed daily.

Day 3

Water level in the tray should be checked every two days, though there may not be any need to add water. One should not miss a single day. It is, therefore, essential to mark these days on the calendar.

Day 7

It is the day for ‘candling’. This will enable removal of eggs that have not started developing. Candling is a procedure in which a light is shone through the eggs to observe whether embryo had started developing. If the egg is fertile, a black blob (the eye and the brain) and perhaps a few veins spread across just like arteries can be noticed.

If the eggs are not fertile, none of these will appear. It will have the same color throughout and none of the blobs are noticeable. At this point, non-fertile eggs should be taken out from the incubator. If they are retained in the incubator, these eggs will get decayed very soon and will result in total muddle in the incubator if they break. From this day onwards, only water level requires monitoring.

Day 18

Three days remaining for hatching: At this stage, turning of eggs should be discontinued. Those who have been performing this task manually are required only to stop turning. On the other hand, those having incubators provided with automatic turning feature should take out the turning tray and softly keep the eggs back in incubator.

As chickens require high humidity for hatching some more water should be added to facilitate the process. During this period, opening of incubator door should be avoided as this will release humidity.

Day 21

Hatching: At this stage, one can hear little chickens twittering inside the eggs and some of them will start breaking open. One should not open the door of the incubator. Chickens stay alive till 48 hours without feed or water, as everything is taken care of within the egg itself when they are hatching. Even after 48 hours if eggs are not hatched, it means that they may never hatch.