Picking up the Eggs from the Farm

We chose to buy our eggs from the Lost Boys Acre Urban Farm, in New Brighton MN.  They raise Serama chickens, quail, ducks, and a ton of vegetables all on a one acre lot in the city!  We picked the eggs up on a cold snowy, winter morning and brought them to school to put them in the incubator.  My son, Owen, helped.

Incubator Set-up

We're using a Hova-bator Incubator, with an automatic egg turner.  Eggs need to be turned every 4 hours, or there is a risk that the embryo will develop stuck to one side of the egg, and could be deformed.  The Hova-bator has a tray that you can fill with water to increase the humidity, and it has a heating element to keep it at 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

Choosing the Breed and Researching Chickens

As a class, students voted on which breed of chicken we should raise.  Popular breeds were the winter hardy Legbar, and the Amerucauna which lays blue and green eggs.  Ultimately we decided to go with Serama's because they are great urban chickens.  They are small, friendly, quiet, and aren't territorial.  They get along well with kids and other animals.  They're about half the size of a normal chicken, and their eggs are small too!  People raise Serama's for their eggs, and because they make great pets.

Students researched how to take care of eggs in the incubator, how to build a chick brooder (the indoor pen that chicks live in until they can go outside), and how to take care of chicks.  We learned about complications during development, problems chicks have during hatching, and how to keep chicks from getting sick.  We researched chick development, and learned how to use a candling lamp to see inside the egg, while the chick is growing.  Chicks hatch after only 3 weeks in the incubator!