There is one teacher in my school that hatches chicks every year. It’s such a cool thing for the kiddos to experience and I always wanted to do that with my kids. I finally asked her where she gets the eggs from…and I’m so mad that I waited so long to ask. Our Florida 4-H program gives you everything you need. All I had to do was contact them and they delivered it right to the room.

Today two wonderful ladies came with the incubator (it’s so much smaller than I had imagined), 7 fertilized eggs, and a daily flip chart of what the insides of our eggs look like.

I cleared off a table for the incubator because I imagined a huge thing, but this one is about the size of a basketball. It auto-rotates the eggs so we don’t have to do anything except put a few ounces of water in the center every few days. It makes a little noise before it rotates them, nothing too distracting…but all day today every one stopped to watch as the eggs rolled. I’ll admit I did too.

These are the eggs that were brought in. The initials at the top show which “mom” they came from. I’m sure it’s to keep an accurate chicken count. Maybe… I honestly have no idea…

Before they left, we were able to see the chickens that laid the eggs and where the chicks will go after they have hatched. No, we do not get to keep them forever. Although I don’t think some of my girls were listening when I said this and I predict a few tears when we have to say good bye.

The eggs are in. Only 21 more days to go. My kids think I know exactly what to do when they start hatching and were asking a million questions about it today. I had to act like I wasn’t gonna freak out as soon as I see a little beak poke through. I’m probably as excited as they are.

My only comfort at this point is that the presenters will come back in 10 days to “candle” the eggs…so we can see what is actually growing in them. I’m sure I’ll have my baby chick parenting questions fully formed by then.

I’m not sure how long the class gets to keep the chicks after they hatch… 🙂 I think I should have asked…

I do love this chart that they left too. It reminds me of what I looked at when I was pregnant with Hucklebaby. We can all see what’s happening inside our eggs each day but I fear there will be a few parents upset when their kids swear they will no longer eat eggs after we watch what happens to the egg yoke… 🙂