As Easter is coming up and spring is in the air we thought it would be fun to get some eggs and hatch them. We got 10 fertilized eggs and we secured an incubator and we set the eggs to incubate and hatch.
We marked each egg with an X and an O so we would know what side to turn them onto. The chicks took a lot of work to mind, they had to be kept warm all the time and they had to be kept in a nice humid environment as well as be turned 3 or 5 times a day.
If the chicks were not turned an odd number of times they would stick to the side of the eggs while they are forming.
To check inside the egg to see if the chicks were forming and developing correctly. To do this we got an ova-scope to allow us to see inside the egg. By looking at the shadows we could see the chicks progression.
Finally after 21 days the chicks were ready to hatch and break out of their shells, not all of them made it but we had 4 healthy chicks emerge out of their shells.
The chicks were kept in a cardboard box with a big heat lamp and access to food and water at the top of the class.
We gave them a heat lamp to keep them warm and some chick seed and water to keep the happy. The chicks were very noisy on their first day in school.
We had the chance to say hello to our new classmates and hold them.
The chicks loved their day in school as did we. We sent them off to a farm to live with come other chickens which is better then living in a box!