Do I REALLY want a bator?

[UrbanMama]

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My Wellies (3) just hatched yesterday and are beautiful!

Incubating and raising chicks has been a huge part of our "curriculum" this year. What ages are you teaching? I've managed to work art, vocabulary, writing, geography/history, science, reading and math all from chickens!

We take a breed that we are going to raise and look up where it originated and when. Research the area and history. Any words that come up in reading that the didn't understand or know, go onto the vocab. list. I have them write out papers on the area of origin. Then we chart the progress of the developing eggs. I have them figure out how the bator works and why. As we candle, I have them first tell me what they see and then they draw a pic of it (art) and pics of the progression. I have them try to figure the odds/percentages of eggs to hatch ratio. Male to female ratio and I have them make graphs of all of it. We use chicks as "manipulatives" for fractions! And then there are the harsh life lessons. The reality of deformed or dying chicks.

We do still use traditional curriculum as well, this has just been on the side...but it's been sooo wonderful!

Sorry for the long tangent....

 

[~SunSetsWest~]

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I agree!

DO NOT go down this road, once you do, your done, BOOM! your a hatch-a-holic

My bator has not had a breath since June

 

[BeardedChick]

Well, even though I only want a few more chickens, I got interested in hatching for a few reasons.

1. I don't like shipping chicks around. I would just rather not do that... A scrambled egg is one thing, but dead chicks in the mail is not good. Also I live in a cold climate, so shipping has to wait until late in the Spring. All in all, I just am not big on shipping.

2. I want to have really nice quality stock. I just like having nice breed examples, I enjoy it. I feel I can hatch stock from breeders that better than I can buy from hatcheries.

It is a LOT more expensive, so you have to be willing to throw money at it as a hobby. I expect to sell or rehome my extras, and some roosters may go to freezer camp.

 

[Mesa]

Thank you all for your input.

Kelley, My kids are 8, 6, 3, and 1. So we're still pretty new to homeschooling. So far we love it. I love the freedom... to sleep in late if we want, go on vacation when we choose, and best of all the freedom to choose the curriculum I want for each of my kids. You just cant beat that.

Jackie

 

[shelleyd2008]

'Do I really want a bator?' Now what kind of question is that? Of course you want one! Then you will want to have staggered hatches, because the 21 day wait is just killer! So that would be a second bator. Then of course you would want different kinds of birds (i.e. quail, ducks, goose, turkey, guinea etc.) so you would need more, another 1 or 4 bators, since it's not good to mix them up. Then of course you would REALLY have the hatching bug, and would be looking into getting a really BIG bator so you can hatch out tons of the little boogers...Oh wait, we were supposed to be talking about you, weren't we?