Video: Egg Candling Day 8

We candled the chicken eggs again today, and were able to see a LOT more of what is going on inside. On Tuesday, we were able to faintly see the shadow of an embryo in about five of our eighteen eggs. Four of the eggs seemed to have nothing going on inside them, and the rest left us with a big question mark; we just couldn't tell what was going on.

What a difference three days makes! We were able to confirm that six of the eggs were indeed duds...

Nope. No chickens here.

...but the rest? All of them had something like this going on;

Did you catch that little shadow hopping around towards the bottom of the egg?

That's totally a chicken!!!

Now, keep in mind that the expression about not counting one's eggs until they hatch is there for a reason. We've had eggs that have seemed perfectly viable just not hatch, for no reason that we could figure out. We've been very careful to let the Frogs know that sometimes, the chicks just don't come out, even if we really, really want them to. As we said in the last post, a 50% hatch rate is about average for us in a good year, so if we get six chickens we'll be very lucky...

The final dozen.

..That said, twelve is a nice round number, so cross your fingers!

Egg-citement!!!*

First up, the Robin's Nest update:

Notice anything about that egg on the top, right hand side? No???

Look closer;

AAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!

At first, we thought that it had to be an accidental crack- there's no way that a whole entire being can be ready to hatch in such a short time. Well, according to the Internet, it's not only possible, it's normal! We'll post updates as the situation develops, provided Mama Robin can tolerate our nosey-ness!

Also, we spent the morning anxiously looking out for one of these;

Why? and how exactly does a UPS truck relate at all to eggs? Well, last week we ordered one of these, a fancy-pants egg candling device which was slated for delivery today! Now, if you saw last Wednesday's post, you got to see a few examples of how the Frogs have been exploring light and shadow. When you candle an egg, you use light and shadow to give you a sneak peek at the developing chicken embryo. (Or the empty egg as the case may be.)

I actually snapped this picture while I was on my coffee break downtown. The back was wide open and it took every ounce of my self control to resist climbing in and rifling through the boxes until I found it! It's a good thing i didn't, because when I got back to school, it was already there!!!

it turned out that our web cam didn't do a very good job of capturing images from the Ova-Scope, so we relied on our good friend, Mr. IPhone, to help us view the candled eggs. Here are a few pictures of our eggs at 5 days gestation:

This egg is beautiful with the light shining through it, but it shows no signs of embryonic development. This is not uncommon. In our experience, the average hatch rate of incubated eggs is about 50% or less. (We drew the star onto the outside of the shell to help us keep track of turning the eggs.)

See those veiny looking lines at the bottom of the egg? Those are a clear sign that, somewhere on the yolk of this egg is a little bunch of cells that are starting to grow into a chicken!

Same here! As we get further along the 21 day gestation period, we should be able to see the outline of the embryo itself. All of those veiny lines lead to the developing chick's umbilical cord, delivering nutrients from the yolk sac.

The kids are starting to make a lot of connections between concepts, thanks to this project. They have connected the eggs in the Robin's nest to the eggs in our incubator. They have also started to connect the waiting that comes along with this process to the waiting that many of them have gone through recently when they had new siblings come into their lives. (We've had 5 babies show up over the last 12 months!) At the beginning of this project, we asked "Were your babies ready to be born right away? Or, did you have to wait a for them to come out?" You could see the knowing looks cross their faces, as they all started talking about how it took a long, loooong time for those babies to come out.

It's funny, in years past, the Frogs have found the process of waiting 21 whole days for these chickens to come out to be a bit arduous. Somehow, I suspect that this time, it might be a tiny bit easier. 21 days goes by a lot quicker that 40 weeks!

(*Apoligies for the horrible pun. I just couldn't resist!)

They're Here!!!!!

...Lets hope that they have chickens inside them!!!!

Chick Watch '09' - Better Luck Next Time...

No chicks...Oh well.
We aren't sure what happened, but it seems like at some point, the embryos stopped developing and that was that. Definitely disappointing, but, as usual, the kids were much better at taking the news in stride than the grown ups were.
Francine and I carefully took the eggs out of the incubator first thing this morning. As you can imagine, eggs that have been sitting in a warm place like an incubator can get very rotten, very fast. We wanted to avoid the chance of the eggs exploding inside the incubator, so we felt that we couldn't wait for all of the children to arrive before we moved them. We put them in a carton, wrapped it in paper, and brought the whole package outside to the dumpster. When the kids arrived, we told them all individually that the eggs were gone. We tried to explain in simple terms what had happened. We said that the chicks did not hatch when they were supposed to, and that if chicks had not come out of their eggs by now, they were not coming out. We also said that we had to take the eggs out of the incubator before they became rotten.
During circle time, we had a more in depth conversation about what happened with the chicks inside the eggs. The kids had a chance to think about it and ask us questions. The main thing on everyone's mind was, "Why didn't the chickens hatch?" We said we did not know exactly why, but for some reason, the chicks had stopped growing inside the eggs and had died. We explained that the chicks were dead, and that when something is dead, it can't move by itself.
The whole concept of death is simple and complex at the same time. We could have gone on and on with this part of the discussion, but it was pretty clear that The Frogs were willing to accept our simple explanation of what "dead" means. Last week, we spent some time looking at dead bees and ladybugs with magnifying glasses. At the time, the children were able to explain to me that the bees and bugs would not fly away or sting them because they were "dead bugs".
The next thing the kids wanted to know was why we put the eggs in the dumpster. We explained that now, the contents of the eggs were turning into compost. When things turn into compost, they make gas- smelly gas! We explained that eventually, the smelly gas inside the eggs wouldn't have anywhere to go and the eggs would pop, just like a balloon- a very smelly balloon! We told them that, if the eggs were going to pop, we wanted them to do it in the dumpster!
We acknowledged that it was disappointing that the eggs didn't hatch when we wanted them to. We asked the kids if we should try again, and they were unanimous; YES!!! We said we'd give it a little time, then we'd get some more eggs for round two.
The overall tone of our circle time was a nice combination of serious, inquisitive, lighthearted and hopeful. On the one hand, we teachers wish things had turned out differently so we could watch the children's reaction to an incubator full of fluffy chicks. On the other hand, we all learned so much from this experience, even if it didn't go exactly as we wanted it to.

Chick Watch '09' - Holding Out Hope For The Weekend...

....Still nothing.
Francine checked in with a friend who used to raise chickens commercially and was told not to give up until the weekend was done. Considering that we started incubating the eggs on a Wednesday very deliberately so that the hatch would fall in the middle of the week, it would be very ironic if the chicks waited for the long weekend to make their appearance. Let's hope we have ironic chickens!!!

Chick Watch '09'- Still Nothing....

Patience....

Chick Watch '09'- Waiting...

We've been checking the eggs periodically. No cracks, no peeps, all is quiet in the incubator. We'll post updates here as events warrant.

Chick Watch '09' Begins!!!

Today during circle time, we talked about how this should be the last full day that the chickens spend inside their eggs. If everything goes as we had hoped, they should start hatching tomorrow or the next day! We have been candling the eggs regularly to get a glimpse of what was going on inside. At last count, we had four eggs that looked like they clearly had embryo's developing, five eggs that clearly didn't have any chicks in them, and seven eggs that had shells that were too thick to show us anything when we held them up to the candler. We'll see how many hatch!
The children have been really enjoying pretending to be baby chicks who are getting ready to hatch. We told them the whole story of how previous hatches have played out, and the children act out every single step with such reverence for the whole process! The first thing they do is scrunch up into a ball and pretend that they are crowded inside an egg. Then they use their 'egg tooth' to break a tiny hole in the shell. The "chicks" start 'peeping' to each other to let the other chicks know it's time to hatch. Hatching is hard work, so they take a nap to rest up, then they make the crack in the egg bigger, then they take another nap, then they crack the egg some more...this goes on for a looooong time until the 'chicks'/children are ready for the final push out of the egg. Once they are all hatched, the Frog/chicks fluff up their feathers, and take another nap! If you're looking for a good time, try asking your child if they will do their dramatic interpretation of a hatching chicken... It's very entertaining!
We are hoping that all of this pretending will prepare the children for how long it takes for the chickens to hatch. They have certainly been very patient up until this point! We will update here with any new chicken information. In the meantime, here are a few more 'hatching' videos from you tube to tide you over!

Chickens;


Snakes;


More snakes (long!);


Monarch Caterpillar;


Enjoy, and keep your fingers crossed for our eggs!