Hatching Your Own Chickens!

Your own flock of happy, free-range chickens, scratching around in chemical and pesticide-free grasses, can mean a continuing supply of fresh eggs free of antibiotics and growth hormones and it's an easy step-by-step process.

Hatching baby chicks!

It could be a fun science project for the children. Learning is always fun and what is better than looking into an incubated fertile egg and watching the development of a life, from the beginning, with the first sighting of blood veins and pulsating life, to the tiny shape of the bird and beak and onto the later stages of feather growth - and this miracle takes only 21 days.

It's a great chance for the children to start a journal!

Give the children their own composition books and let them name the project themselves, "Growing a Chicken" or "My Chicken Adventure." Give them some space and their own original titles will be amazing. The 21-day project will fly-by with new things to do and see.

The incubator!

This project will require a money investment in the beginning. A good egg-hatching incubator is a must. There's nothing worse than buying a cheap product, spending many hours observing, logging information, caring for the eggs and then producing only a few chicks that could even be unhealthy. So, do some research, ask some questions and when you are satisfied with your knowledge on the subject bring your good dependable incubator home. Plug it in, read the manual and know how it works. A forced-air incubator will have a fan for ventilation and will require little attention (like egg turning). Eggs will have to be turned by hand at least three times a day in a still-air incubator. The children can help in the turning process. Mark an penciled X on one side to be able to tell which eggs have been turned.

Now the fertile eggs!

Grocery-store eggs won't do. Your hatching eggs will have to come from a flock of healthy chickens that includes a rooster. Use fresh, unrefrigerated eggs that are only one or two days old.

Check the holding temperature in the incubator!

Plug in the incubator and watch the thermometer for at least 24 hours to make sure it holds the correct temperature. Add the eggs and do not adjust the temperature after this. The eggs will cause the temperature to drop a little for awhile. This is normal.

Now the fun begins - candling!

On or around the third day or even a little later, life will have started in some of the eggs. In a dark room, ask one of the little "scientists" to shine a flashlight into the large end of the egg. Inside a fertile white-shelled egg there will be visible faint blood veins and gradually a small pulsating life. Eggs that are infertile will be clear. After a few days these eggs can be removed from the incubator.

The magical eighteenth day!

By this time the children will probably have many entries in their "chicken" journals. They have learned a lot of science and it was all fun. They have gently helped with candling the eggs to observe the developing life, and now it's time to check the humidity for the last time before the hatching process begins. After this, keep the incubator closed. There should be a "viewing window"" in the incubator and soon the chicks will begin to hatch.

Tiny cracks will appear in some of the eggs and movement is noticed. Small beaks will appear. Birth takes time! Be patient. One chick may seem to be struggling in the birth process and it may be very tempting to open the incubator and help. Don't do this. The humidity will be lost in seconds. Chicks need continuing constant humidity at this crucial stage to soften the shell so they can break through. Opening the incubator now will cause healthy strong chicks to die in a shell that was not soft enough to break through.

Relax and enjoy your success!

Now that the chicks are all hatched out of their shells and are fast becoming energetic bundles of fuzzy cuteness, you're a step closer to your goal of daily fresh eggs for breakfast and baking. The children have participated in an adventure of life and now it's time to relax and enjoy your successful science experiment that will soon be producing all the fresh eggs you can eat - and it was all fun!

Sources:

www.canteach.ca/elementary/life20.html
www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/livestocksystems/?DI0631.html
www.howtodothings.com/pets-and-animals/?a3158-how-to-hatch-chicken-eggs.html
www.grassfedfarms.com/?free-range-eggs.html
www.duckeggs.com/hatching-eggs.html