On a recent visit from Chicago our 6-year-old grandson Goran was fascinated with the chickens and obsessed by the possibility that the eggs could hatch into chicks. He went out to the henhouse several times a day and would lift up a setting hen to check for eggs. If there were no setting hens, he would go out in the yard and find one, pick it up, carry it to the henhouse, and put it on a nest. Then he would stand there and wait. About the third day of his visit, his mom was straightening out his sleeping back, and she discovered an egg under his pillow. Goran explained that he was keeping it warm and waiting for it to hatch. He would not accept any explanation about a three-week incubation period and need for the egg to be kept warm constantly. He was persuaded, however, that eggs are fragile and his egg would be less likely to crack if he waited for it to hatch in a cup in the kitchen (covered with a napkin of course to keep it warm).
