Tough chicks?!?

This is maybe an odd question, but have any of you noticed a difference in chicks wether born early (now), later spring/summer when they can get outside sooner or late summer/fall?  Differences in growth rates, overall health, future laying capabilities (due to time of yr they'd reach pol) etc? Or does it all 'come out in the wash by time they're a couple years old?

Also is there a difference in 'broody skills' as an adult between chicks that came out of an incubator & ones that were hatched/raised by hen?  Ie is broodiness & mothering skills innate/instinctual behavior or is it learned (or both)???

Just curious, I've got my first ever chicks safely in the brooder & doing great (so far), and am thinking as this is quite a mixed batch - purebred buff orps, blue/black/splash orps, white chanties, partridge chanties and some mixed barn chicks. I have currently got each group separated but am thinking of mixing them all together, as I'm thinking of growing them up/out and picking future stock from them?!? Yes - largely based in sentimental reasons - would love to be able to have some of my 'first ever' chicks for the next X#/yrs!

Would love to hear any/all ideas, thoughts, theories! Feel free to reply here or email me if you prefer to answer in private!

It seems I always hatch my chicks in the winter months. THey get a week to 10 days in the basement brooder before they begin to smell too much and I boot them out to the hen house. I have found, Dooversue, that chicks are way tougher than you think!

If they are kept warm and content in the first few days of life, they are off to a great start. Even my meat bird chicks, which often drop over for no reason, I do not lose any. Mind you, I now buy them a 20 minute drive from here and do not subject them to the stress of being delivered from Alberta. I think chicks hatched at your place, brooded at your place, then put out to grow at your place will be healthy and sturdy.

I have never found any difference in broodiness between bator hatched or hen hatched. I think wht determines that is mostly nature/genetics. Some breeds are more broody than othrs. I had a Silkie that never quit being broody! It tried to hatch a golf ball for at least 3 years. Breed of chick more than anything determines broodiness, in my experience.

As for laying better or worse, I have found no correlation between hen hatched or bator hatched. Again I think it comes down to the type of chickens you have. Some lay better than others.

I hatch mine all winter (when I'm hatching) put them out into the hen house wit ha 250 watt bulb, lots of fluffy shavings underfoot to keep them off teh cold floor, food water and the tough ones will survive. They ALL survive! I give them no artificial light to hurry their development along...I just let things unfold as they unfold.

Thanks Uno! The info is much appreciated! Trying to learn as much as I can and truly appreciate the help

For what it's worth, I had one bird go super broody in late winter. She would escape the chicken yard (not hard to do if I don't clip a wing) and make her way to the barn every morning, where I'd find her sitting on her one egg.

When I clipped her wing and gave her a good talking-to about hungry winter coyotes, I would find her in the nesting box every night and she'd peck the hell out of me when I moved her out to collect the day's eggs.

For your record, she is the offspring of a battery-raised-and-rescued white Leghorn, and an mixed-heritage (i.e. MUTT) rooster, incubated in my spare bedroom.

So she has the genes of a battery egg laying machine that shouldn't have much maternal instinct, and she was raised in a brooder, yet her Mama-ness is too strong to deny.