Science Experiment... need some thoughts

[FarmMomof3]

Ok So my oldest child is in Grade 6 this year and she will be entering the science fair again this year. The fair itself isn't until April 2013.. but since she's wanting to do her experiment on Chicken Genetics, i told her that she should start on it right away because it will take your chicks a while to grow into adults.

So here's her plan.
We have Danish Brown Leghorn Roosters (hens also) and some Mixed breed Hen (called Red Stars by the lady we bought then from) They are black with speckled orange feathers. So my daughter is going to try and see if she can get a Black feathered Chicken, that has the floppy comb of the Danish browns (at least our danish brown hens have super floppy combs.

I'm just not quite sure how to have a scientific procedure for this. We have a clutch of 5 chicks with a broody red star hen right now.. they are about 3 days old (found by surprise in our hay loft) and we've just started 7 eggs in a Brinsea Mini Eco incubator.

This way My daughter can take photos and such right from the setting... rather then using the 3 days old chicks.. since we aren't completely sure when they were hatched. I'm helping her with the project.. mostly turning the eggs and keeping the incubator temp correct and such, taking pictures of the chicks when i see mama hen off the nest. I'm also helping her figure out how to make this scientific.... The data collected, writing it into a workable experiment and making her display board and final project will be all her doing.. alone (unless she needs someone to help her carry her experiment... I'll do that) I'm not involved in anything else.

Anyone have any thoughts, ideas to help her along? She's in school right now... hence why I'm asking.

 

[FarmMomof3]

Bump

 

[Sweetlilbaby]

I feel for science sake it's important your child knows what breed mix makes a red star. Crossing a Rhode Island Red male and a Delaware female makes a Red Star. She can put that in her experiment details so that it's not just "mixed breed" or "red star" because for an experiment it's best to have all the details.

I can't think of anything you can do to help, other then letting her set another batch of eggs as soon as these hatch so she'll have better chances of getting what she's looking for. Also has she come up with a name for her mix? I find that to be fun to make up a name for the mix breed.
As a teenager I use to play around with genetics of chickens by mixing them. We ended up with several hens that would lay eggs every 14 hours or so (seemed like twice a day). I was only hatching eggs from the best egg layers, the ones that would lay daily. Then I would time them and watch them carefully. The hens that laid eggs less then 24 hours apart and so on until I got it down to 14 hours. This took years. But believe me nobody complained.

Sadly those hens ended up killed by wildlife (Racoons, possums)
I hope the experiment works out for your child. If not at least it was fun hatching/raising chicks right?

 

[FarmMomof3]

Yes thank you!
I'm not sure what the lady we got our "Red Stars" from actually made them from. I have her number so I'll call her next week and ask her.

WE might be doing a bit of a Chicken Family tree for this project. My daughter is loving it so far.