Every year in springtime, we organize for “The Living Eggs’ company to deliver a batch of fertilized chicken eggs to our preschool. The incubation time for chicken eggs is 21 days, an awfully long time for preschool children to wait, and a lot of work for staff. This company, deliver the eggs with just 2-3 days of incubation remaining. They provide the eggs, incubator and ‘nursery’ tub for the hatched chickens, set it all up, and return in two weeks to take it all away. Perfect!
So, all that was left for us to do was watch… and wait!
Soon enough, some cracks started to appear… and if you listened really closely, you could hear the faint ‘cheeping’ of the baby chicks.
We had to put an ‘egg timer’ (how appropriate!) on the incubator as the children were eager to keep a close watch on the eggs in the hope of spotting some action.
Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait for long! Our first seven little chicks were keen to break out into the world within minutes of each other. They were followed the next day by two more. Sadly, but true to nature, one little egg did not hatch.
Within the first week, we gave the chickens time to settle in to their new home, grow, and become a little more robust. So the children spent lots of time observing their funny antics through the perspex window.
Then in the second week, we let the chickens out to play. The children were remarkably gentle and nurturing.
And here is beautiful drawing of one of our chicks, by Kate.
If you are interested in viewing some more spring ideas, click on “Springtime Play” under Categories in the column to the right of this page.
This blog made me realized that homemade egg incubator is such a wonderful and fun thing to do. I think I am going to have a business in this kind of field. Chicken egg hatching!