my sons class is hatching eggs and boy do they have questions

[fratmor]

well you saw in the title they have questions! but they are asking the wrong person ,I've got chickens but I've never hatched any.
They are rotating the eggs a few time a day,But what to do during the week end?
my son said the incubator is made of a card board box ,but what about the humidity
thats a whole question on its own they don't have any yet.
and so on and so on .....any one with any advice,I would appreciate it. thanks

 

[ThaJuicyJuice]

They do have to keep turning the eggs throughout the weekend. I am sure a quite a few folks might have a better idea, but if there is no hygrometer, just use a wet sponge. My father told me when I was growing up that he made an incubator out of a cardboard box and light bulb and had no problem hatching eggs. That was quite a few years ago, I am not even sure he had a thermometer or hygrometer because common tools today would have cost an arm and a leg in the 60s. What would BYC do without all of our fancy gadgets?

 

[ScissorChick]

Automatic egg turner is what they need. Unless the teacher wants to take all of them

home with her on the weekends. Which would not be easy at all.

 

[Suechick]

I see a few options for egg turning:

1) get and automatic egg turner.
2) have someone go to the class room to turn them at least twice each day, morning and night.
3) have someone take the whole set up home with them to take care of the turning over the weekend.

For humidity, if you live somewhere that has decent weather, not too dry, you probably don't really have to worry about it until it's time for hatching. Quite a few people do "dry hatches" where they don't add any extra moisture until the hatching phase aka lockdown.

A bright LED flashlight is good for candling the eggs after day 7, if the eggs are developing they will be able to see the dark eye of the chick and it will be moving around inside.

BYC is a great place for your son's class to ask questions. There are lots of folks on here all the time who will answer questions for you. It's a great place!