Incubators Anonymous

[wornoutmomto3]

DH is just along for the ride hoping one day I will come to my senses, but knowing it will never happen. We took a trip a few weeks ago and stopped by the feed store that started me down this feathered road. You could almost see the relief on his face when I told him they were sold out of day-old chicks until after the new year. He isn't thrilled with all the chickens, but he does enjoy the eggs. When I let him eat them.

My current incubator is getting tossed after this hatch. It is being held together with packing tape and glue. It sprung a leak, the cat decided it made a nice warm bed and split one of the corners, the lid broke, and my viewing window is falling off. I have managed to keep it together for now. Thankfully the hatch is almost over. The eggs are in lock down and the waiting has begun.

The next 'bator is already under construction, with a few convenience modifications planned. I am also collecting supplies for the kids.
With some research I am actually putting together a lesson plan for chicken egg hatching for elementary age homeschoolers. The kids will spend four weeks constructing their own incubator, hand turn the eggs, and learning about the development of chickens from a just laid egg to a grown hen laying more eggs (and how the chicken we eat gets to the table). If you have anymore ideas of fun activities and lesson I would love to hear them. Also, if you have any eggs you are willing to contribute I will be collecting eggs to be set at the end of February. Don't want super expensive eggs. I will be working alongside my kindergartner, but my 4th and 5th graders will be doing this particular hatch themselves. Which means the success of the hatch will depend on them. This has me a bit nervous, but I know they can do it.

 

[ladycat]

With some research I am actually putting together a lesson plan for chicken egg hatching for elementary age homeschoolers. The kids will spend four weeks constructing their own incubator, hand turn the eggs, and learning about the development of chickens from a just laid egg to a grown hen laying more eggs (and how the chicken we eat gets to the table).

I love that idea!

 

[Faraday40]

To wornoutmomto3
In Illinois, there are some great resources available to teachers at the county farm bureaus. (For us the binder of science experiments, incubator, brooder, & some starter feed was included in the county's "Poultry mAGic Kit". All I needed was to reserve the kit months in advance & buy the fertile eggs. The Ag Education Office even helped recommend egg sources.) As a home school mom the educational resources are also available to you & usually free. At most you may have to come up with a school name & make a teacher ID to qualify for the misc. programs and museum discounts. Many home school associations already provide this.

4H is another great resource & if you're home schooling, it can be a huge part of your curriculum. I taught middle school for 15 years & learned how to survive on a shoe string budget. If you put an ad in the feed store B-board or even Craigslist, I'm sure you'll be able to find some local eggs. If you want specific breeds, BYC has a selection of eggs in the buy-sell-trade forum. There's also eBay. I still recommend a local source when possible. BTW- I'm not technically a home school mom, but I do teach about 40 home school children per week. It started when I became a stay at home mom & missed teaching. I offered a few science classes to 3 families & things just took off. Now I do classes at the library & park district as well as my home.

Some labs off the top of my head:
Tell the children you have some fresh eggs & old eggs, but they got mixed up. Have them test (without cracking) to see which is which. Hint: float test.

Tell the children you have some hard boiled & raw eggs but have forgotten which is which. Again they need to figure it out w/o cracking. Hint: Any spin, roll or candle tests will work

Egg Dissection to learn egg anatomy & show diff between fertile & infertile by the egg pot.
Also use vinegar to decalcify an egg's shell & show the membrane.

Osmosis: Make 2 decalcified eggs & get starting weights. Soak one in water & weigh it every 10 or 20 min to show how the water moves into the egg through the membrane. Do the opposite by putting the other decalcified egg into corn syrup. The egg's water moves out. This can also help children figure out why the old eggs float. Great time to practice making data tables & graphs.

Pipping the shell. Hand out an egg & a straightened paper clip. With tiny back/forth movements, students must make a tiny pip hole in shell. Remember to show how cramped things are inside, so the chick cannot peck or use a lot of force.

If the kids are old enough, there are some fun physic lessons like walking on eggs (geometry of the arch), the famous egg drop (kids must make a device to protect their raw egg from a drop of X meters), & "egg"nertia (use raw eggs to demo Newton's 1st Law).

Add a creative writing assignment, some fun literature, art projects, and a little research and you will have more than a month's worth of activities.

 

[TeaChick]

Ha I've been handling eggs like they're unpinned grenades ever since. Hopefully I have your luck with very few breaks! I have 35 eggs at the moment and 11+ more on the way and I've been waiting so (im)patiently for them that I'd be pretty sad to lose any to my clutsy nature

Yeah, I've been a lot more careful too.
Wish the PO would handle hatching eggs "like they're unpinned grenades". I have one egg left in my bator from eight, and I'm (im)patiently waiting for her (I hope) to hatch. (Beginning to get twitchy. I hate lockdown!)

Thanks! He went to a friend who wanted a bantam cochin roo s I was very happy he got a good home if it couldn't be mine

He is going to be a very handsome guy and hopefully popular with the ladies

I have two Cochin roos right now, one LF and one Bantam. If I can't rehome the LF one, I'm going to have to process him. DH said he's okay with feeding the Bantam, he likes Phil. lol (Phil is the roo, not DH. lol)

Such a bummer when an egg cracks in the mail

Hopefully your two eggs will keep going strong so you can get some pretty eggs

The blue one quit. The little green one is still going. She's supposed to hatch today (she was supposed to hatch last Wed, but I'm going by development/candling). Anyway, if she doesn't at least show me an internal pip, I'm going to have to do something tonight!!! She should be coming out, I've given her more than enough time. I guess if I still see veins up by the air cell I won't start "helping"....IDK

Somebody help me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello Sonderah,
About your using plastic eggs. Yours must be magic or at least more effective than mine. Every time, and I do mean every, the hen(s) kick them out of the nest and being hard headed (Want references on that?) I really try, several times. My plastic eggs are the sort that one gets in the 99 Cent store; hollow and in two haves which snap together. I'm not sure the lightness is what gives them away for I have tried those imitation feed store eggs which look and feel for all the world like a hen's egg. Same result. So this time I'm asking for any suggestions or ideas from you wonderful chicken nuts! Hey, it takes one to one, remember..?
Sincerely,
Neal, the Zooman

If I understand correctly, and if my source is correct...(great start, huh?) Anyway....The way I understand this hens going broody thing, they will go broody on anything that warms up like an egg does, golf balls, plastic easter eggs, feed store fake eggs, etc. apparently do not. IDK whether porcilen eggs do or earthenware eggs or wooden eggs or whatever else they may make egg shaped stuff out of, but a hen knows whether it's an egg or not by how it takes and emits heat. I had one broody one time, she rejected golf balls for her second broody mood and she rejected eggs that quit developing (which was all of them).
Yup, takes one to know one.

I have those kind of eggs too. I had them doing the same thing so I went outside and got some small rocks and put one in each egg. They don't kick them out anymore. Only once and a great while.

Interesting to know.
I've read that a broody hen will go broody on a pile of cement. I wonder if it has to do with how it warms up or the hens broodiness. I'll have to try rocks in plastic eggs instead of golf balls from now on. Thanks!

 

[TeaChick]

The weirdest thing just happened... I have some Seramas in a large brooder/bird cage in my house and I have a brooder of tiny chicks... 2 Seramas ad 2 Silkies that just hatched a few days ago. One of the older Seramas was testing his crow a little bit... it is not very loud and sounds like a little frog crowing. Then I hear from inside the brooder, a tiny Silkie chick standing tall and doing a little crow! You know, as best as he could for being a 4 day old chick??!! I couldn't believe it and didn't know that was even possible. It was kind of adorable except that one of my 2 Silkie chicks is probably a roo. I still can't believe it... has anyone ever seen such a thing?

I haven't seen it, but a neighbor of mine said she has. She got some small chickens from someone, they were just a few days old, and they were crowing.

I swear if you put fragile on the box it's drop kicked by USPS. I collect antique glass and most sellers use the postal service. It's total gamble when you open the box. But I had eggs shipped anyway. They all came intact but they have only been in the incubator for a few days. So my fingers are crossed. How many days until I can candle them and see what's going on? I cracked one attempting to candle and I don't want to handle them again until I can actually see for sure.

I have only incubated shipped eggs once. I candled at three days of incubation and I couldn't see anything. I did it again at 5 days and they had all started developing. They all started late and they all developed slowly (that could be shipping, or it could be the stock they came from), either way, I candled about twice a week and then I based lockdown on development, not on number of days in the bator. I set them four weeks ago tomorrow and I"m still waiting on the only one I have left to hatch. I'm still seeing veins when I candle, so I'm still hoping that she comes out on her own. I don't want to assist; I'm very afraid of that.
Sorry to be so long winded.

I hope that helped anyway.

 

[TeaChick]

It's been a hell of a day at our tiny farm. We witnessed our first egg being laid, ten minutes after hanging the nesting boxes. And I found two little heart beats through the shell of my incubating eggs. Plus my kid made honor roll. But to be honest I'm more excited about the chickens. I have Campine eggs and its hard to make out blood vessels. But I found the eye and heart. You can actually see their little hearts beating! And Mables first egg looks to be perfect. I was so looking forward to our first egg and now I'm not sure what to do with it. I feel like I should display it on the mantle or something. Between this and the time change I don't think I'm going to get any sleep tonight.

Congratulations!!!
I agree with displaying it on the mantle. It will keep for several months, so just wait until the new wears off of it and then make an omlet.

 

[calichicken]

I have two Cochin roos right now, one LF and one Bantam. If I can't rehome the LF one, I'm going to have to process him. DH said he's okay with feeding the Bantam, he likes Phil. lol (Phil is the roo, not DH. lol)

LOL...bantams grow on ya so feeding them to get small eggs....not so bad

The blue one quit. The little green one is still going. She's supposed to hatch today (she was supposed to hatch last Wed, but I'm going by development/candling). Anyway, if she doesn't at least show me an internal pip, I'm going to have to do something tonight!!! She should be coming out, I've given her more than enough time. I guess if I still see veins up by the air cell I won't start "helping"....IDK

Somebody help me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


YIKES! I hope she(hoping too!) Hatches soon!!!!

I have never been huge on assisting either, but have done so successfully a couple of times when they have pipped and then had problems. Never have assisted with no internal/external so not sure how that process works

Sorry I can't be more help but good luck and rooting for your egg to hatch

 

[TeaChick]

Yeah, they're (Bantams) super cute and totally worth the feed bill!!!

She (my little blue egg) didn't make it. I opened it up this afternoon and she was already dead. Maybe if I had been up to assisting last night, she might have made it, maybe not; who knows?
I have a dozen more in another incubator, so hopefully I'll have some babies in a week and a half. I am pretty sad about the one little green egg though.
Thanks for rooting for her!!!

 

[calichicken]

Yeah, they're (Bantams) super cute and totally worth the feed bill!!!

She (my little blue egg) didn't make it. I opened it up this afternoon and she was already dead. Maybe if I had been up to assisting last night, she might have made it, maybe not; who knows?
I have a dozen more in another incubator, so hopefully I'll have some babies in a week and a half. I am pretty sad about the one little green egg though.
Thanks for rooting for her!!!

Awww...so sorry

Unfortunately sometimes you just can't tell whats going on with development or what went wrong..well at least I can't LOL! But I am still learning

 

[TeaChick]

Awww...so sorry

Unfortunately sometimes you just can't tell whats going on with development or what went wrong..well at least I can't LOL! But I am still learning

Thanks.

I'm still learning too. I wasn't feeling well on Tues night and I think that was when she needed help. Live and learn.