Classroom egg hatching advice

[ok1242]

Hi -
I am a chicken lover. I have 6 backyard hens...

I am starting a chick hatching project in my daughter's classroom next week. I have a Little Giant circulated air incubator with an egg turner and I am getting 40 eggs from a friend with a farm full of roosters and hens.

Does anyone have any advice for me before I begin? I really want this project to be successful. How likely is it that I will have chicks that do not hatch all the way? I do not mind if they do not hatch at all, but to hatch only part of the way upsets me.

I was planning to start on a Tuesday around 2pm, so that they will hatch on a Monday or Tuesday.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

 

[silkiechicken]

If you leave it closed, most chicks will either hatch or not hatch. I advise this as if you are doing it in a classroom setting, you don't want to "help" a bird and then have it die if it wasn't ready or if it wasn't quite strong enough to make it... I think the most important thing to do is to tape down the temperature adjustment knob and do all the turning and mainence work yourself as an innocent bump or what's this knob do can change temps and not be so good for the hatch. In addition, schools in this area shut off heat for weekends, so I would check to make sure your school doesn't or if they do, that the bator can hold temps on like saturday nights. That's all I can think of now. Good luck!

 

[MissPrissy]

Let the bator run for as long as possible to settle in and get stable before ever putting eggs in it.

When you put the eggs in the temps will change. Resist touching it for several hours.

When you stop turning on day 18 - sit on your hands. Do not open that bator if you can help it until after day 21 (unless you need to add water for the humidty but do it fast)

Good luck!!

 

[ok1242]

What about candling? Should I do that and if so, when?

 

[arlee453]

I recently did a hatching project with my son's 2nd grade class and it was so much fun.

I went in each week and checked on the incubator and had the teacher send me home the temps each day.

I used an auto turner also, to minimize the kids getting into the bator. I candled at 14 days and showed the kids a few at a time.

I actually brought the bator home for the hatching, but took back some that were ready to hatch at the right time to show the kids and they got to see them hatching.

The teacher wasn't really gung-ho on the project, so it was really up to me to do everything. I would have left them bator there when I set them for hatching, but I knew the teacher would not have done anything with the kids to show them if I wasn't there.

Here's my thread on the topic:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=24445

 

[countyroad1330]

I was told to wait until the 7th day to do candling. You can see a definite eye and veins, and its usually moving around a bunch.

Also, ALWAYS check the water levels in the bator. If there's no humidity the chicks can't get out of the eggs. I had to deal with that with my very last chick.

Good luck and have fun! Oh, and welcome to the board! I saw that your screen name has OK in it. If that means you're from Oklahoma, check out the thread 'Okies in the BYC.'

 

[Tsagirl]

We will be doing another hatching project this year for my daughters 2nd grade class!
Last year in her first grade class we did one but the first couple of days the turner broke so the teacher hand turned them and since it was my first hatch we pretty much did everything wrong! LOL! She almost dumped a whole bunch of water in the incubator(90% humidity) ! Then I saw the water up to the eggs and told her not to and she was so excited about it but really sweet and apologized. So everything went ok they just had to hand turn. Then that Thursday they were spossed to hatch...well they never did! The kids were so very sad. I took the incubator home on Friday and found out I calculated the days wrong and they were due to hatch on Sat. Good greif. So on day 21 on Sat we had 11 babies pop out of the eggs out of 30. This is amazing cause we pretty much did everything wrong. hehe! We did try to candle on day 14 but did not know what we were looking at and looked at it sideways instead of from the top and bottom. Now I know better. Need to candle from the top and then you see veins and movement.

I hope this helps you, sorry for rambling!

We are now gonna do another project the first week of March and I have had now a winter of hatching egg training and being on this site, I think I will do much better.

GOOD LUCK