When you have chickens, it just makes sense to hatch your own eggs sooner or later. This past spring, we did just that. The hatching project was initially part of a homeschool unit study on chickens, but quickly became a learning opportunity for the whole family. Since we are operating on a tight budget, we opted for a cheap incubator. Later we found out that this was a critical error on our part, but we’ll cover that in a bit. There were a few chicken breeds that my husband and I wanted. I wanted Black Copper Marans because they lay a dark brown, chocolate color egg that is beautiful. My husband wanted Ayam Cemanis and Zombies (a cross breed between Ayam Cemani and White Leghorn). Utilizing our local homesteading group, I was able to track down five BCM eggs, and three each of the other two breeds.
Incubating Begins
We got our eggs situated in our incubator and got all the settings for humidity and temperature configured. The incubator sat on the table in our kitchen where it could be monitored frequently. Even the kids were on board with checking on the temp and humidity and alerting us if either of them wasn’t in the proper range. Things for the first week are pretty low maintenance, just add water every once in a while.
The First Candling
Day 7 came around and it was finally time to candle the eggs. Candling is when you shine a bright flashlight through the egg to check for development. The kids were eager to get a glimpse of what was happening inside the eggs. The first three eggs we candled were the Ayam Cemani eggs. Unfortunately, none of these eggs showed any blood vessels or development. Next were the Zombie eggs. Out of the three eggs, we could see blood vessels had developed in two of them. Two was a win in our book! Candling the Black Copper Marans eggs was much more difficult. The shells are so dark that it was very hard to see anything inside them at all. We ended up leaving all six in hopes that we could see better further on in development. After the first candling, we were down to eight eggs.
The Second and Third Candling
On Day 10 we candled again, hoping to eliminate any eggs that weren’t developing. This time we were able to see the tiny little chicks inside, wiggling around in a few of the eggs. Unfortunately, more of the eggs showed they weren’t developing and we eliminated three more eggs leaving us with five. The amazing thing was how much the chicks had grown since the first candling only three days earlier. When lockdown day came around on day 18, we did one final candling. This time it was clear that three of the chicks had continued developing and were hopefully going to hatch. It seemed that the other two had not grown since the last time we checked leading us to believe that they weren’t going to hatch. We decided to leave them in the incubator anyways just in case they were lagging behind the others a little bit. The three we thought would definitely hatch were two black copper marans and one zombie.
Hatching Day
On the night of the 20th day, I was in the house by myself – don’t ask me how on Earth I managed that. Everything was quiet. Then I heard the tiniest little “tweet tweet” coming from the kitchen! I ran in there and looked at the incubator. I didn’t see any pips (that’s tiny cracks or holes the chick inside makes when its hatching), but I tweeted at it and to my surprise it tweeted back! I spent most of that night watching the eggs and chirping at them, trying to encourage them to work on hatching. My husband spent most of the night laughing at me and my ridiculousness. Around 11:00 I noticed a tiny little pip had formed on one of our Black Copper Marans eggs. I knew the chicks would begin hatching the next day. Early in the morning the kids got up to check on the eggs. They immediately ran into my room saying it was time and one of the chicks was hatching. Half asleep, I ran into the kitchen and watched as one of the chicks was working its way out of the shell. Within about twenty minutes the chick was out, and the kids were there to witness it all! They were so mesmerized by the process and then eagerly watched as a second chick pecked at its shell and popped out. Unfortunately, only two of the eggs ended up hatching, but the experience was amazing to share with the kids.
The Chicks Now
After the two Black Copper Marans hatched, we found out that they were only half BCM and half silkie. One of them actually is a frizzle which means her feathers curl instead of being straight out. My daughter named that one Elsa and the other one is named Cinco because she has five toes (a trait that silkies have). Elsa and Cinco were joined by six other chicks in their brooder and now have lots of friends. Both of them ended up being hens which I’m so thankful for! They haven’t started laying eggs yet, but they should within the next month or two. I’m hoping that even though they are half silkie they still lay chocolate brown eggs!
A Second Attempt
I won’t get into too much detail, but we did try our hand at hatching again hoping that it was just the luck of the draw for such a bad hatch rate. We tried six each of Ayam Cemani and Zombie eggs. When lockdown day came at day 18 we had really great development and eight of the eggs went into lockdown. Unfortunately, only three of them hatched but we are grateful we finally got a few of the birds we wanted. We even got our little rooster Frank! After doing some research and talking to other people about our experience, we determined that our choice of incubator was to blame. In a situation like this you really do get what you pay for. Now that we have a rooster and can get fertilized eggs from our own flock, I’m sure we will try hatching again when the time is right, but this time we will purchase a better incubator. This one has been recommended to us with great reviews, but we haven’t tried it yet. I’ve also heard great things about the Manna Pro incubator which is frequently recommended in a chicken group I am in.
Tying it into School
For our study, we learned about the parts of an egg. I was always under the impression that there was a shell, a yolk, and the white but boy was I wrong! We cracked open an egg to identify all the parts of the egg anatomy. Before beginning incubating, we researched how many days it takes an egg to develop and watched a video about what is happening inside the egg day by day. My son was part of getting the incubator set up and daily monitoring of the eggs as well as being an active participant in egg candling and looking for development. Right before hatching day, we watched a few videos about the hatching process to be prepared for it. Once the chicks were hatched, he helped get the brooder box set up with food, water and heat. He then showed the chicks where the water was so they could drink. It was his responsibility to care for the chicks, checking their food and water daily and looking out for health issues. Hatching chicks was such an amazing educational experience, and I would highly recommend that anyone who has chickens try hatching at least once! There are even some farms who have hatching programs for educators where they will loan you an incubator and provide hatching eggs. If you are unable to care for the chicks after they hatch you can bring them back to the farm. If you want to have this sort of experience for your homeschool or classroom, get in touch with your local farm!