Well this has been the subject of many discussions for every chicken keeping enthusiast novice or more experienced one. We at the typesofchicken.com team had a long discussion on natural or artificial incubation and which one is better and why. And because we really don’t like our readers disagreeing with us we decided to help you to decide for yourself by presenting you the good and the bad things concerning natural as well as artificial incubation. If you haven’t decided yet which one to choose this is the perfect article for you.

Natural Incubation:

The good things about:

Natural incubation is good for you if you don’t have enough time during the incubation days and you are a bit irresponsible. A broody hen will do most of the work for you, keeping a stable temperature and turn the egg regularly which means that she will save you a lot of time and trouble.

A broody hen will be able to hatch more eggs than an incubator in most cases, which is very good if you want to count on a higher amount of chicks. One more very important thing that you need to know about natural incubation is that once the eggs hatch the hen will do most of the work for you concerning the subject of caring for the chicks.

The bad things about:

The problems concerning natural incubation are simple, you cannot always tell when a hen will go broody – which can mean an unsafe environment for the egg. There is a limited amount of eggs that you can fit under a hen so this causes some issues with more ambitious chicken keepers. Some breeds like Silkies or the Australorp are known for their motherly instincts or egg laying persistence but with most of the breeds you cannot count on the fact that your hen will be a good mother for the chicks.

Artificial Incubation



Artificial Incubation is hatching eggs by putting them in an incubator.

–The good things about:

Hatching the eggs in an incubator means that you can hatch eggs whenever you want and you don’t need to wait for a hen to go broody, which is good if you are keeping a tight schedule. Also having a big enough incubator means that you can hatch as much as eggs as you want, which is very useful if you are planning on selling the chicks. Caring for the eggs as a process can give its own piece of satisfaction if you are into caring for animals and the chicks will consider you as their mother.

-The bad things about:

Hatching the eggs in an incubator requires a lot of responsibilities which can be a burden for any chicken keeper with a regular job. Taking care of the temperature, humidity, ventilation and turning the eggs on an evenly timed intervals three times a day will take a lot of your time and patience. Also as we mentioned above in most cases a broody hen will hatch more eggs than an incubator.

We at the typesofchicken.com team made this article to help you decide in which way you prefer to hatch your eggs, if have more advantages or disadvantages in mind about natural or artificial incubation make sure that you contact us through the comment section or via e-mail support@typesofchicken.com