Annual Chick Hatching Project has Begun!

The spring season always means one thing in my classroom - it's time for our chick hatching project!  On Monday, I introduced the project to the students after we read a book about the chicken life cycle.  Then yesterday, I went to the hatchery to pick up our 12 fertile eggs.  They were so excited to see them when I got back!  Here they are:

We have the following chicken breeds: Aracaunas, Rhode Island Reds, Buff Orpingtons and Columbian Rock Cross.  I showed these pictures to the students as I explained that there are many different kinds of chickens.

Then we started making predictions on how many eggs we think will hatch!  I explained that while it is possible for all 12 to hatch, that most likely not every egg will.  Each year that I have done this I have never had a 100% hatch rate.

Next week when we reach day 7 of the incubation process, I will candle each of the eggs to look for the first visible signs of embryos growing.  If possible, I will show the students what it looks like inside each egg and we will draw the pictures in our chicken journals!  I will try to post some pictures of the eggs next week, so stay tuned!

~Ms. Julie

One week down, two weeks to go!

Today marked one week since we put our 12 chicken eggs into the incubator!  It's been a long week of constantly checking the temperate and humidity of our incubator. I even brought it home with me over the weekend so that I could keep a closer eye on it!  I was anxious to candle the eggs to look for signs of development. 

To candle the eggs, you can shine a bright light (from a flashlight) onto the egg to see what is happening inside.  Here is an example of a chicken egg after 7 days of incubation:

 

The black spot in the middle is the eye, and then you can also see a curved embryo shape forming and the veins.

 

 

Here are a few pictures from our eggs that I took today:

 

    

The black dots (down toward the bottom) and veins are a little more visible in these two eggs because the shells are green.

 

    

You can still see the black dots in these two eggs but the veins are not as clear as the other two.  These eggs have brown shells.  The size and thickness of the shells can also determine how easy it is to see what is happening on the inside.

 

I will candle all the eggs again in another week.  Right now, it looks like at least 6 of our eggs have some good development happening.  Hopefully none of these 6 will become quitters (the begin to develop but then die during the process). 

 

Until next time!

 

~Ms. Julie



It's Finally Springtime!

It's finally springtime and that means one thing in my classroom - our chick hatching project has begun!

Today we went to pick up our chicken eggs from Mount Healthy Hatchery. 

I only ordered one dozen this year, but we still got a mix of 3 different breeds.  In the past, I have had Rhode Island Reds and Americaunas, but this will be the first year I have had Columbian Rocks.

This afternoon before we put our eggs into the incubator, we talked about how the eggs were the same and different and the students completed the first page in their chicken observation journals.  Then I had each of them make a prediction on how many of the eggs they think will hatch.  Here are our predictions:

And finally, we put our eggs in the incubator!  Fingers crossed that we don't have any significant temperature and humidity problems this year and hopefully we have a few successful hatches.  It's going to be a long 21 days!

            

 

Stay tuned!

We Are Almost There!

Tuesday of this week marked 2 weeks of our eggs in the incubator.  I candled all of them again to check their progress and most of them looked good!  Here are a few pictures...
 

 

 

I did remove 2 of the eggs that did not have any signs of growth, se we are down to 22 eggs now.  Today was the 18th day, so I have removed the turning tray and bumped up the humidity level.  Hopefully over the next few days we will see some hatching start!

 

 

In other news, our sunflower seeds have been growing a lot in our cups, so today we planted them in the ground outside!

 

 

 

 

And we re-planted our bean and pea seeds into larger pots since they were growing so much!  We initially planted them in a plant viewer so the kids could see the roots as the plants started to grow.

 

 

Hopefully I will be able to make another post soon with some good hatching pictures!

 

~Ms. Julie

 

 

 

 

 





Week 1 Success!

Yesterday marked a full week of our chicken eggs being in the incubator!  I was so excited to do the first round of candling all the eggs to see which ones were winners (fertilized and growing), quitters (started to grow but died/quit) and yolkers (eggs that were never fertile).  We definitely have a few winners in the group and as I was candling them all I made sure to take some notes.  There were quite a few that I think are winners but had a little bit of a hard time deciding what I was seeing in the eggs.  The dark brown ones were the most difficult, but I think we have some winners for all 4 kinds of eggs that we have!  I picked 4 of the best ones to show to the kids, and they were all excited.  We even wrote in our chicken observation journals to record what we saw. 

I also managed to take a few good pictures:

 

If you look toward the bottom of the egg, you can see the dark spot, that is the embryo and the dark spot is the chicken's eye!  You can also see some healthy blood vessels.

 

 

We got to see a lot of movement with the enbryos in some of the eggs, which is really exciting!

 

 

 

Last week we did some cute art projects as we were learning about chickens and other oviparous animals.

 

Our robin nest project

 

Mother Hen and Chicks directed drawing

 





We will candle our eggs again next week on Tuesday or Wednesday to check for continued progress.  By then I will definitely take out any eggs that I know for sure are quitter or yolkers to have more space in the incubator before we enter the hatch stage.  I'll also take some more pictures of the eggs to post by then!

 

~Ms. Julie

Chicken Hatching Project is Back!

This year we are doing the chicken egg hatching project again!  The kids were very excited about the project when I told them about it before our Spring Break.  Yesterday, we took a trip to Mount Healthy Hatcheries and picked up 2 dozen fertile chicken eggs.  We have an assortment of eggs again this year!

From top to bottom, we have:

6 Rhode Island Reds

6 Araucanas

6 Buff Orpingtons

6 Black Australorps

 

This afternoon we put the eggs in our incubator.  We waited until today to put them in so that the hatching day will be during the week instead of over the weekend.

 



 

 

Each student also made a prediction for how many eggs they think will hatch!  Some students were very confident... me, not as much!  We also filled in the first page of our chicken observation journals today.

 

We also have a countdown where we will color in one egg each day until we reach 21 days!  3 weeks is kind of a tough concept for the kids to understand, so this way they can see how many days have passed and how many more we have to go.

 

 

 

Hopefully everything goes smoothly this year and we don't have any incidents with a temperature spike in the incubator.  We don't have any extra time to start this project over this year!  We have been learning about the chicken life cycle and today students were able to put the pictures in the correct order.

 

 

We will do our first round of candeling next week to see if there is any progress!  



 

~Ms. Julie





It's Almost Back to School Time!

I cannot believe how fast this summer has flown by!  We are only a week and a half away from the first day of school.  As I'm trying to get everything ready for the new school year, I realized I never posted an update on our chicks.

Back in June, I took my summer camp group on a field trip to Parky's Farm, which is the farm we donated our chicks to after they hatched last May.  When we arrived, I asked if we would be able to see the chicks and of course they said yes!  They were not old enough yet to be out with the other chickens, so they arranged to have them brought out especially for us.  The kids and I were super excited.  Unfortunately, our little black one that had the crooked neck did not make it, but we were able to see the other 4 - I couldn't believe how much they had grown!  They were almost 2 months old when we saw them - here are some pictures:

 

They were pecking at my hand through the screen just like they used to when I would put my hand by them when they were in our classroom.  I can't wait to do this project again next year, and I hope that Parky's Farm will be willing to take any that hatch again.  It is a wonderful place and the kids always have a great time there.

I plan to use this blog throughout the school year this year to show what we have going on in our classroom, so stay tuned if you're interested!

~Ms. Julie