Why didn*t anyone tell me they move?!?!

[blasto]

I*m on day 7. I saw veins on day 4 and thought that was cool, but today I checked again, and the little embryos are moving around! One of the little buggers is actually dancing

. I had no idea they moved around so much--even my husband thought it was cool (the first time he seemed impressed with my chicken obsession) and my 4 yo says we should keep the radio on for them so they can keep dancing. How sad that every school-aged child doesn*t get the opportunity to study egg development first-hand. Think I*ll go write my congressman to toss out those silly teach-to-the-test curriculums and get incubators back in to our classrooms!

 

[JustChicky]

Sounds good to me! I have a 4 yr old, almost 5, and we can't wait! We just got our second set of chicks to add to our small flock. I've never hatched eggs before. Hopefully later this year (or next year) we will set some Dominique eggs.

 

[Mrs MIA]

Yep, they move around a LOT.. doing somersaults and everything!

 

[98 gt]

im gonna have to check that out... never thought to check for that...

 

[blasto]

Not sure how easy it is to see if you are using a regular candling set up, I imagine you can*t keep the eggs out for long, right? The scope thing on my little incubator (R-com mini) acts as a temporary cover and the temp and humidity remain pretty much constant while I view the egg. I lose a bit as I swap the scope for the cover and then again when I put it all away, but only a couple of degrees for a couple of seconds.

 

[blasto]

double post.

 

[Teresaann24]

My almost 3 year old and 16month old loves the chickens and chickes. My 3 year old says she wasn't born she was hatched..LOL

 

[GardeNerd]

My two kids love getting to see the inside of the eggs as they are being candled. The white eggs we have are extra easy to see into. We just use a minimag light. The first time my eight year old said the eggs, at 4 days, looked like they had red spiders in it. Our eggs are on day 13. They liked that we could see the eye ball the last time we did it. We will candle again tomorrow.

Each day my daughter keeps having me open the links with the pictures that show what it looks like on the inside of the eggs. She likes to see where they are at that day and where they are going. At the beginning of the project she thought it looked "yucky" but now the comments are "wow" and "look, it has eye lids now!"

I would suggest looking before showing them to your kids. They may be a little too graphic for kids much younger than mine.

http://freshpics.blogspot.com/2007/05/stages-of-chick-embryo-development.html

http://lancaster.unl.edu/4h/Embryology/embryophotos.shtml

 

[GardeNerd]

When my kids and I candle we only look at a couple, rather than all each time so they aren't all out or affected by the kids touching. I worry that it could hurt the embryos with movement or germs, but if I don't let them be involved they won't be as excited. They have already learned a lot, especially how fragile life really can be.

I think this was a great project to do as a family regardless of whether or not our chicks hatch successfully. We have discussed issues we might not have otherwise.

 

[Poohbear]

Magical miracle of hatching chickens. Nothing more snuggley (is that a word?) than a fluffed day old chick.