A beginner’s guide to chicken breeding
Thinking about breeding your own chickens but not sure where to begin? Whether you're hoping to hatch your first chicks or simply want to learn more about the process, getting started can feel both exciting and a little overwhelming.
In this blog, our Ambassador, Claudia, shares her experience, practical advice, and the lessons she's learned along the way. From choosing the right breeding stock to preparing for healthy chicks, she'll guide you through the essentials with clear, beginner-friendly tips to help you start your breeding journey with confidence.
If you've ever dreamed of watching fluffy chicks hatch in your own backyard, this guide is the perfect place to begin.
Breeding chickens for beginers
Breeding chickens is such an exciting and rewarding part of poultry keeping that allows chicken keeping enthusiasts to improve their flocks, and preserve their favourite breeds.
While the thought of breeding chickens may seem a bit overwhelming at first, getting to know the basics is pretty straightforward once you understand how genetics, flock management, and proper care work together.
I’ve been breeding poultry for over 27 years and I never tire of the hatching process, it still fascinates and amazes me!
Whether your goal is producing more eggs, raising meat birds, developing colourful feather patterns, or simply hatching chicks for fun, learning the fundamentals of chicken breeding can help build a healthy and productive flock.
Understanding chicken breeding
At its simplest, chicken breeding involves selecting a cockerel and hens to produce offspring with desirable traits. These traits may include:
- Egg production
- Temperament
- Feather colour and patterns
- Body size
- Cold or heat tolerance/how hardy they are
- Meat quality
Responsible breeders carefully select birds that display strong health, good structure, and desirable characteristics. Over time, selective breeding improves the overall quality of the flock.
Choosing the right breed
Before beginning a breeding program, it’s important to decide what type of chickens you want to raise. Different breeds are suited to different purposes.
Egg-laying breeds
If your main goal is egg production, breeds such as Rhode Island Reds, Leghorns, and Australorps are popular choices as these hens are known for laying consistently throughout the year.
My Leghorns produce 300+ eggs a year!
Meat breeds
I’ve never bred my own birds for meat, but for those who are keen to, Cornish Cross chickens are commonly bred for this purpose because they grow quickly and develop large breast muscles.
Dual-purpose breeds
Dual-purpose breeds provide both eggs and meat. Plymouth Rocks, Orpingtons, and Sussex chickens are good examples.
Ornamental and heritage breeds
Some breeders focus on rare or decorative chickens, including Silkies, Polish chickens, and Sebrights. Heritage breeds are often valued for preserving historical bloodlines and genetic diversity.
When starting out, it’s usually best to focus on one breed. This makes it easier to predict traits and maintain consistency in your flock.
Selecting healthy breeding stock
The quality of your chicks depends heavily on the health and genetics of the parent birds - try to always select chickens that are:
- Active and alert
- Free from visible disease
- Well-shaped according to breed standards
- Productive and fertile
- Calm and manageable
Avoid breeding birds with chronic illness, deformities, poor feather quality, or aggressive behaviour. Healthy genetics lead to healthier future generations.
The cockerel is especially important because his genetics influence many chicks at once as he will cover multiple hens.
Understanding chicken genetics
Basic genetics play a major role in breeding outcomes. Every chick inherits traits from both parents, including feather colour, body shape, and productivity.
Some traits are dominant, meaning they are more likely to appear in offspring, while others are recessive and may remain hidden for generations. For example:
- A dominant feather colour may appear immediately in chicks, eg: if breeding a Black Pekin bantam with a Lavender Pekin bantam, the first generation chicks will all be solid black because lavender is a recessive gene.
- A recessive trait such as feathered feet may only appear if both parents carry the gene. Many breeders keep records of pairings and hatch results to better understand how traits are inherited. Over time, this helps improve breeding decisions.
Housing requirements
Broody hens require safe, clean, and comfortable housing. Stress and overcrowding can reduce fertility and egg production. Nest boxes should be clean and quiet so hens feel secure laying eggs.
Dirty nests increase the risk of bacteria contaminating eggs intended for hatching. Breeding pens are often used to control which birds mate. This is especially useful if you are working with multiple breeds or bloodlines.
If your broody hen is not top of the pecking order, it may be best to isolate her into her own broody coop, otherwise your other hens may disturb her wanting to lay their eggs in the nest box she’s in, and this can affect the eggs she’s incubating as they’re at risk of getting scrambled if moved too much, or at risk of being broken if stood on.
A suitable coop should include:
- Good ventilation
- Dry bedding
- Predator protection
- Separate nesting boxes
- Adequate space for each bird
The coop I use for my broody hens and their chicks is the House/Ground coop from Nestera, it’s at ground level so when the chicks hatch, they can easily hop in and out of it.
Fertile eggs and incubation
A fertile egg is produced when a cockerel successfully mates with a hen before the egg forms. Fertile eggs look identical to regular eggs from the outside, however, you can either test fertility through incubation (by candling the eggs), or you can tell if your eggs are fertile when you crack them as the yolk will have a little bullseye on it (a white circle with a dot in the middle, AKA the blastoderm).
If it’s not fertile, there will still be a white spot on the yolk (blastodisc), but not a bullseye. You then know if your cockerel is fertile and can start collecting your hens’ eggs to incubate them.
Natural Incubation
Some hens become broody, meaning they naturally sit on eggs to hatch them. Breeds such as Silkies, Pekins and Orpingtons are known for their strong maternal instincts.
I’ve hatched many chicks both naturally and artificially and it’s noticeable in my experience that the chicks thrive more when raised by a mother hen, as long as she’s a good mother!
Artificial Incubation
Many breeders use incubators to hatch larger numbers of chicks as hens can only incubate a certain number of eggs at one time.
Incubators control:
- Temperature
- Humidity
- Egg turning (if automatic)
Chicken and bantam eggs usually hatch after 21 days of incubation, maintaining stable conditions is critical for successful hatching.
The temperature must be 37.5°C and humidity usually 45% for most breeds which needs to be increased to 65% when chicks are due to hatch to enable them to break out the egg more easily.
During incubation, you can candle eggs by shining a light through the shell to observe embryo development. Candling can be more tricky with darker shelled eggs (eg; Marans) so a very bright torch is required for these.
Quite often I use incubators to hatch chicks so I know the eggs are not going to be disturbed, and once the chicks are strong enough after 24-48 hours, I transfer them under a reliable broody hen at nighttime so they can communicate with each other, in the hope the hen accepts them.
Caring for newly hatched chicks
Once chicks hatch, they require warmth, food, water, and protection. A brooder is commonly used for rearing chicks inside during the first few weeks (usually 6 weeks until they’re fully feathered).
Essential brooder supplies include:
- Heat lamp or brooder plate
- Chick starter feed ( I use chick crumbs, you can get anti cocci chick crumbs if preferred to prevent coccidiosis)
- Clean water
- Dry bedding
Ensure your chicks have a grippy surface to stand on once hatched to avoid issues like splayed leg. Brinsea incubators have a mesh-type tray in them so chicks don’t slide around.
Young chicks cannot regulate their body temperature well, so heat is essential. The brooder temperature should start around 35°C and gradually decrease each week.
Cleanliness is extremely important because chicks are vulnerable to disease like coccidiosis.
Managing breeding lines
As breeding progresses, maintaining healthy genetics becomes increasingly important.
Avoiding inbreeding
Close inbreeding can increase the risk of:
- Weak immune systems
- Poor fertility
- Physical deformities
Some experienced breeders use controlled line breeding to strengthen desirable traits, but beginners should introduce unrelated birds periodically to maintain genetic diversity.
Keeping records
Good breeders track:
- Hatch dates
- Parent pairings
- Fertility rates
- Chick survival
- Egg production
Accurate records help identify successful bloodlines and improve future breeding decisions.
Nutrition for breeding chickens
Chickens require high-quality nutrition to support fertility, egg production, and chick health.
I feed my flock Verm-X Layers Pellets and offer additional supplements when needed, eg: Verm-X Daily Plus Pellets and Verm-X Apple Cider Vinegar. They also have unlimited access to separate containers of oyster shell and grit to aid calcium intake and digestion.
Common challenges in chicken breeding
Like breeding any animals, breeding chickens can come with challenges.
Low Fertility
Causes may include:
- Poor cockerel health
- Overcrowding
- Old age
- Improper nutrition
Poor hatch rates
Problems can result from:
- Incorrect incubator settings (cheap incubators should be avoided, I recommend using Brinsea)
- Dirty eggs
- Weak genetics
- Improper egg storage (if keeping the eggs for a period of time before incubating, they must be turned once a day and stored pointy end down, ideally aim to incubate them within a week of being laid as fertility decreases after this time).
Chick mortality
Young chicks are sensitive to:
- Cold temperatures
- Dirty water
- Disease
- Nutritional deficiencies
So, those are the key points to take into consideration when hatching your own chicks, and whether you’re breeding for eggs, meat, exhibition birds, or personal enjoyment, breeding chickens can be a highly rewarding (and addictive!) hobby and/or business. ‘Chicken maths’ is definitely a thing!!
If you’re keen to learn more about keeping chickens, feel free to follow the Bury Green Poultry flock on Instagram at Bury Green Poultry or go to the BGP website.
Happy hatching!
Claudia :)
