Hatching, housing and feeding a flock
Poultry runs on a few fixed numbers. Chicken eggs hatch in 21 days, duck and turkey eggs in about 28, Coturnix quail in 17, and Muscovy ducks take up to 35. Lockdown, when you stop turning the eggs and raise the humidity, comes three days before the hatch. A standard laying hen eats about a quarter pound of feed a day and needs roughly 4 square feet of coop floor plus 10 square feet of run.
These calculators turn those figures into your dates and your numbers: your hatch date and candling days, the coop size for the flock you actually keep, how many bags of feed a month costs you, and what a dozen eggs really costs to produce.
Tips worth knowing
- Set eggs in the evening, and chicks tend to hatch during the day when you can watch them.
- Give more space than the minimum if birds are shut in during winter. Crowding causes pecking and dirty eggs.
- Hens eat more in cold weather and lay less in a molt, so feed cost per dozen rises in winter.
- One nest box per four hens is plenty. They'll queue for the same favourite box anyway.
Common questions
What temperature should an incubator be?
99.5°F (37.5°C) in a forced-air incubator. Still-air incubators run about 1–2°F warmer measured at the top of the eggs.
How many chickens can I keep in my coop?
Divide the coop floor area by 4 square feet per standard bird, or 2 for bantams. Add a run of about 10 square feet per bird.
Why did my feed cost per dozen go up?
Laying drops in winter, in a molt and as hens age, while feed intake stays the same or rises. The same bag then covers fewer eggs.