5 Hatchings

Today we had 5 chicks hatch. The first to hatch started cracking a tiny hole at 8:00 AM the previous morning, and it finally hatched at about 1:30 AM the next day. At first we could only see a little beak poking out the small hole it had made. The chick gradually turned in the egg, making a long crack all the way around the egg. Once the chick had got the egg shell off it would wiggle until it was out of the egg. Once the chick was out it would lay and rest for a while. When all rested up the chick would try walking, most the time it would last only a few seconds before falling down though. The chicks were very curios, so they would peck the other eggs. Every chick did something either funny or amazing, one chick crawled back under its egg shell, another chick must have just pushed all it could because its egg shell burst open sending chunks of shell flying in all directions, and one chick was even doing backflips (because its balance was off and its belly was fat)! Once the chick's feathers were dry we put it in a box with a makeshift heat lamp and food. When all 5 chicks were in the box they started pecking each others face, and biting another's toes, some even cuddled up with each other and fell asleep.

My Chicken Tractor

I have built a chicken tractor so the chicks can be outside. The chicks will learn how to find their own food. The chicken tractor is about 3 times as big as their bin, so the chicks can get lots of exercise and have way more space. One side of the roof will have hinges so the roof can fold over so we can reach in and grab the chicks. I will soon build a hen house that can set on top of half of the tractor, it will have a ramp from the house to the ground inside the tractor

Here’s the update about my experiment

None of the eggs hatched, so we are putting in some more eggs. I think that the shell was too thick, so the chicks couldn’t get out. The humidity level may have been too low, so it may have not softened the shell. We opened up an egg that was not going to make it, it was at 23 days it had a chick that was still alive, but the chick died right away.

This time we aren’t going to open the incubator any more than we have to. We will only open it to rotate them, we won't even to candle the eggs. We went and bought 6 baby chicks that were only a day old. The chicks are so soft and cute, so I am holding them all the time.

Still WAITING!

Number 15 we think will hatch because we see the chick moving around every time we candle it. We have read that if the temperature is under 99.5 Degrees the chicks can hatch late, so we are glad to know that we have been keeping our temperature at constant 100 degrees. The eggs may not hatch because the humidity level could be to low, the temperature might be wrong, or the eggs are not fertile, we know our eggs are fertile because we have embryos.