Scrub fowl do not incubate their eggs by sitting on them as other birds do. Instead, they build huge mounds of sand, leaf, litter and other debris on the ground and bury the eggs in them. The heat generated by the decomposing vegetation helps incubate the eggs.
The male scrub fowl looks after the eggs, adding or removing litter as required to regulate the internal heat in the mounds. He also digs holes to ventilate the mounds until the eggs hatch.
Scrub fowl have large feet that are well adapted for digging and foraging through soil and leaf litter. The birds spend most of their time on the forest floor and generally take to flight only when disturbed.