Meet the chicks!
The chicks have hatched!
On Wednesday morning we came into school to discover that the first egg had hatched. On Thursday morning we found a second chick in our incubator. We left them in the incubator for 24 hours each for their feathers to dry off then two volunteers helped to put them into the brooder box, while other children helped to clear out the old egg shells. We could not believe that these fluffed up chicks came from the small space inside the eggs.
We have not had any more cracks in the eggs today and have started to talk about how the others might not hatch-- a bit like how not all of our frog spawn turned into tadpoles. It has been helpful to see first hand how this plays out among different egg laying animals.
Every now and then the class has broken into an 'aww' because we hear the cheeping clearly from the corner as our two chicks talk to each other. We believe they are a boy and a girl, but will need to find out how to tell exactly for this breed. Next week the children will be responsible for cleaning out the brooder box and changing their food and water.
Meeting our eggs and starting our Humpty Dumpty experiment (with very different eggs!)
We have kept a close eye on our chicks for 21 days. After putting the eggs in the incubator we have made sure to turn them twice a day, so that all parts of the egg have the warmth of the lamp on them. At day 14 we all had the chance to 'candle' the eggs. This meant using a special torch in a dark space to look for a shadow inside the egg. The shadows that you see in these pictures are the chicks growing in their eggs! We could see the shape of the eye, beak and veins in some of the eggs. We all thought it was amazing! From day 18 the eggs need to be left in the incubator without being turned to give them the best chance of hatching.