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!