Filling the Incubator - April 23, 2021

When our friend Miss Jan asked if we wanted to try a new homeschool science project involving incubating chicken eggs, we were quick to jump on board. She'd hoped for just a few more egg layers to be added to her flock. So we were surprised when she showed up with 36 eggs!

The eggs had come from another woman who raises chickens. She wasn't fully sure which breed of her chickens had laid which clutch of eggs or whether all would be fertilized. So it was really an experiment of unknown results when we began! The plan was to have the eggs stay in the incubator at our house until hatching and then the chicks would spend the first couple weeks at our house until they "graduated" to live outdoors in Jan's backyard. 

We tried candling the eggs at the beginning. Of course, the embryo wasn't obvious visually yet, but this gave us a baseline to note the change when we would candle again later. 

Then it was time to put each egg inside the incubator, handmade by Jan and her dad years ago. They had handmade the candling box as well. 

It was initially a bit nerve-wracking putting the eggs in, hoping they wouldn't break. (Plus, there was some discomfort with the fact that some eggs were a bit dirty with, well, what we assumed may be chicken poop!) Helen was our brave first volunteer to fill the electric egg turner.  

The yellow plastic turner would keep the eggs slowly rotating from side to side, so we didn't have to flip them over by hand each day. 

Each kid had a turn to put a dozen eggs into the slots. 

We had multiple thermometers to measure the temperature in various areas of the incubator. We also installed a hygrometer, which let us know the level of humidity - another important factor in incubating eggs. We plugged it all in and began the 21 day wait to see if anyone would hatch out of these eggs!

The next step would be candling the eggs.