How can I have a successful classroom hatching project?
Back to blog
Hatching eggs at school can be a rewarding and enlightening school project! In fact, the founder of My Pet Chicken was first charmed by chickens during a hatching project in grade school. After that project, she was a changed person! In her eight-year-old heart, she knew for a fact that she would keep chickens herself and help others adopt chickens when she grew up.
And now, years later, you can see from our website how that turned out! So, at My Pet Chicken, we have a definite soft spot for schools who want to organize hatching projects.
That said, though, hatching baby chicks at school is not something to be taken lightly! There are many things you will want to consider BEFORE starting your project. Let us help you with that! Here are our top seven rules for organizing a successful hatching project, so you can make informed responsible decisions when you are ready to go:
Because My Pet Chicken caters to backyard hobbyists, when we sell eggs for hatching projects, in the vast majority of cases, the teacher him or herself is a chicken hobbyist, so the birds usually go to the teacher's home flock. This is ideal, of course! The teacher gets to choose the breeds s/he wants to add to the home flock and is involved in every step. Plus, the teacher gets to share something really special with students--something that My Pet Chicken's owner can attest that kids may never forget!
But we get questions, too, from teachers who are interested in a hatching project, but who don't know what to even consider when making plans. If you don't intend to keep the chicks you hatch out for your own flock, you must identify a responsible individual to take the birds afterward. If you can't find homes for the birds you hatch, the bottom line is that proceeding with a project in those circumstances is irresponsible, and it could even model that irresponsibility to the students. That is why we have written this article.
But just because you know someone who keeps chickens--or just because someone responded to your ad--that doesn't mean you have a sure place to home the baby chicks you hatch! "I might be able to adopt those" is not a firm commitment; it is just a promise to consider. Be sure to talk everything through first and make firm plans. When it comes down to the nitty-gritty, your chicken friend may not have the space to add all the birds you hatched, or may not want the expense of additional feed. It may be that your friend decided to order baby chicks this year and now they don't have room for the ones you would like to rehome. It may be that they thought it through, but can't work out good logistics for introducing the new birds to their existing flock.
Remember, too, that some people won't want to adopt and make introductions until the birds are large enough to be introduced, at six weeks or so... and by that time, many breeds will be close to fully grown. Make sure you have room to keep the birds if you must wait that long--make sure you have thought through every eventuality!
Integrating birds can especially be a problem when introducing certain fancy breeds like Polish or Faverolles because they may look so different from the birds in the original flock. If you are adopting to a large farm, they may not be interested in fat, friendly dual-purpose hens, because they may exclusively keep high-production breeds like Red Stars or Leghorns. Alternatively, some people, especially 4-Hers, may ONLY be interested in adopting fancy breeds that they can exhibit at a poultry show. Your backyard chicken friends may be interested only in chocolate layers, or they may only keep bantams. They may have a fondness for a specific breed or color. You will be able to find adopters more easily if you offer to get the breeds your potential adopters are interested in!
That is why you'll want to consult your adopters before you purchase about what breeds they expect to be able to introduce without problems. You want the babies that you and your students tamed and lovingly hand-raised to go to good homes.
If any students and their families might want to adopt, remember that chickens are flock animals, so each would have to adopt several (not just one!) and understand that roosters are a probability! If they are new to chickens, be sure to share this free Chicken Care ebook with them so they and their families can be properly prepared to care for chicks and chickens.
How many of each sex am I guaranteed to get?
Remember, you will not be able to tell the sex of the birds you hatch until they are 13 or 14 weeks old. You can read about that here:
How can I tell if my juvenile bird is a rooster?
You will also never know for sure how many of your eggs will hatch. If you are getting eggs locally, AND if you do everything right, the hatch rate will probably average around 80%. With shipped eggs, the hatch rate typically averages 25% to 50%--and again, that's if you do everything just right! Even when your technique is right-on, you may get a very bad hatch rate--or even a zero rate!--if your eggs saw especially rough shipping. Read more about that in our free Guide to Incubation and Hatching.
But because you can't control exactly how many will hatch and you won't know how many will be which sex, you cannot promise your adopter an exact number of hens, roosters, or even an exact number of birds. We think this is Mother Nature's way of reminding us to be flexible!
Hatching baby chicks doesn't have to be just an exercise in biology. It can also be an exercise in problem-solving, thinking ahead, taking responsibility, accepting disappointment, and making hard choices. After all, if you cannot identify good homes for your birds, it will be a great disappointment to your kids! But that is a teaching moment, too, and they can learn to be proud of making the right choice not to hatch chicks that will not have good homes. If you have to make that decision with your students, be sure to offer praise to the kids for being caring enough to make such a hard, disappointing decision. What a mature thing!
For that reason, discuss the project with your students throughout the process. You can ask them to brainstorm places to look for homes, questions to ask potential adopters, best brooder set-up designs, proper chick care and brooder clean-up schedule, etc.
After all, a hatching project doesn't begin at incubation, it begins long before when you start taking responsible steps to care for the living creatures you are hatching--they are totally dependent on you to provide them care. If you can teach your kids to make such responsible decisions during the process, it's still a successful hatching project in our book, even if you don't get to incubate a single solitary egg.
For that reason, when organizing a hatching projects at school, you will generally want to incubate more eggs of less expensive breeds so you can afford more eggs for the same cost, making the risk for disappointment lower.
That said, if you can't find acceptable eggs locally, My Pet Chicken has a special selection of less expensive fertile eggs for educational projects.
As you see, this inexpensive selection available for educational projects only consists of a hatchery choice assortment of a few friendly and popular dual-purpose varieties that usually get along well with other birds in a mixed flock.
Be sure to let your kids know how delicate an operation incubation can be. Some kids are so excited they want to lift the incubator lid and handle the eggs. Unless you tell them, they may not understand that letting out heat and humidity so frequently can cause the developing chicks to die, and they may not understand how sensitive some incubator thermostats can be. A very small adjustment made by a well-meaning child may send temperatures skyrocketing to 120 degrees or more--way too hot. So, make sure everyone knows the rules of incubation, too.
If you do get a bad hatch rate, this can be a teaching moment, too. You can open the eggs to look to see what may have gone wrong as we direct in our troubleshooting guide.
This is an opportunity for the kids and you to play detective. Was it too hot, too cold, too dry, or too wet? Did an overnight power outage cause a problem when many chicks died on day 13? To repeat, a hatching project can be a success, even if you don't get a single chick to hatch, if your kids learn about responsibility and critical thinking.
And now, years later, you can see from our website how that turned out! So, at My Pet Chicken, we have a definite soft spot for schools who want to organize hatching projects.
That said, though, hatching baby chicks at school is not something to be taken lightly! There are many things you will want to consider BEFORE starting your project. Let us help you with that! Here are our top seven rules for organizing a successful hatching project, so you can make informed responsible decisions when you are ready to go:
Rule 1: Find homes for all the baby chicks you may hatch before you purchase eggs or even an incubator!
Firstly and most importantly, if you don't plan to keep all the chicks you hatch for your personal flock, be sure you have identified good homes for ALL chicks you may hatch--and do this before you make any purchase at all. Why? Because you don't want to realize last-minute that you can't find homes for those chicks. Contact breeders, farmers, or 4H-ers in your local area to see if you can identify people who would be willing to adopt. Whatever you do, keep in mind that the Humane Society usually cannot accept chicks...and even when they can, it is not an ideal situation at all. It is imperative that you are prepared ahead of time to have homes for the chicks where they will receive proper care.Because My Pet Chicken caters to backyard hobbyists, when we sell eggs for hatching projects, in the vast majority of cases, the teacher him or herself is a chicken hobbyist, so the birds usually go to the teacher's home flock. This is ideal, of course! The teacher gets to choose the breeds s/he wants to add to the home flock and is involved in every step. Plus, the teacher gets to share something really special with students--something that My Pet Chicken's owner can attest that kids may never forget!
But we get questions, too, from teachers who are interested in a hatching project, but who don't know what to even consider when making plans. If you don't intend to keep the chicks you hatch out for your own flock, you must identify a responsible individual to take the birds afterward. If you can't find homes for the birds you hatch, the bottom line is that proceeding with a project in those circumstances is irresponsible, and it could even model that irresponsibility to the students. That is why we have written this article.
Rule 2: Not everyone who keeps chickens will be willing to adopt yours!
There are many ways to find someone to adopt chickens, including asking local farmers, posting ads at a local feed store, contacting your local 4-H club, placing ads in the local paper, checking with a local "chicken enthusiasts" Facebook or Meetup group, or asking a friend who keeps chickens.But just because you know someone who keeps chickens--or just because someone responded to your ad--that doesn't mean you have a sure place to home the baby chicks you hatch! "I might be able to adopt those" is not a firm commitment; it is just a promise to consider. Be sure to talk everything through first and make firm plans. When it comes down to the nitty-gritty, your chicken friend may not have the space to add all the birds you hatched, or may not want the expense of additional feed. It may be that your friend decided to order baby chicks this year and now they don't have room for the ones you would like to rehome. It may be that they thought it through, but can't work out good logistics for introducing the new birds to their existing flock.
Remember, too, that some people won't want to adopt and make introductions until the birds are large enough to be introduced, at six weeks or so... and by that time, many breeds will be close to fully grown. Make sure you have room to keep the birds if you must wait that long--make sure you have thought through every eventuality!
Rule 3: Coordinate breeds to hatch with your adopters.
Any adopters you identify may have specific preferences as to the breed of chicken they adopt because some breeds will be easier to introduce than others. When you have identified potential adopters, be sure to consult them on how many and what breed they would prefer to add to their flocks.Integrating birds can especially be a problem when introducing certain fancy breeds like Polish or Faverolles because they may look so different from the birds in the original flock. If you are adopting to a large farm, they may not be interested in fat, friendly dual-purpose hens, because they may exclusively keep high-production breeds like Red Stars or Leghorns. Alternatively, some people, especially 4-Hers, may ONLY be interested in adopting fancy breeds that they can exhibit at a poultry show. Your backyard chicken friends may be interested only in chocolate layers, or they may only keep bantams. They may have a fondness for a specific breed or color. You will be able to find adopters more easily if you offer to get the breeds your potential adopters are interested in!
That is why you'll want to consult your adopters before you purchase about what breeds they expect to be able to introduce without problems. You want the babies that you and your students tamed and lovingly hand-raised to go to good homes.
If any students and their families might want to adopt, remember that chickens are flock animals, so each would have to adopt several (not just one!) and understand that roosters are a probability! If they are new to chickens, be sure to share this free Chicken Care ebook with them so they and their families can be properly prepared to care for chicks and chickens.
Rule 4: Even when you've made arrangements for every chick to be adopted, Mother Nature can throw you a curve ball.
Once your adoption arrangements have been made, but before you proceed with a purchase, you should understand that when you hatch babies at home or school, you will get a mix of males and females. Typically, they hatch out in ratios of about 50% males and 50% females, but that is not a guaranteed ratio! You can read about that at the link below. While this applies to ordering straight run day-old chicks, the same math will apply when you hatch birds of your own:How many of each sex am I guaranteed to get?
Remember, you will not be able to tell the sex of the birds you hatch until they are 13 or 14 weeks old. You can read about that here:
How can I tell if my juvenile bird is a rooster?
You will also never know for sure how many of your eggs will hatch. If you are getting eggs locally, AND if you do everything right, the hatch rate will probably average around 80%. With shipped eggs, the hatch rate typically averages 25% to 50%--and again, that's if you do everything just right! Even when your technique is right-on, you may get a very bad hatch rate--or even a zero rate!--if your eggs saw especially rough shipping. Read more about that in our free Guide to Incubation and Hatching.
But because you can't control exactly how many will hatch and you won't know how many will be which sex, you cannot promise your adopter an exact number of hens, roosters, or even an exact number of birds. We think this is Mother Nature's way of reminding us to be flexible!
Rule 5: Include your students in the entire process--not just the hatching part!
These concerns about the ultimate well-being of your birds are why raising chicks with the intent to rehome them is not an ideal situation. However, if you take those responsibilities seriously, it can be a great teaching moment, especially if you include your students in the process of searching for homes. This doesn't mean your students need to adopt the chicks themselves. What it does mean is that they must learn about the responsibility to rehome any baby chicks you bring into the world, and learn about it from the get-go.Hatching baby chicks doesn't have to be just an exercise in biology. It can also be an exercise in problem-solving, thinking ahead, taking responsibility, accepting disappointment, and making hard choices. After all, if you cannot identify good homes for your birds, it will be a great disappointment to your kids! But that is a teaching moment, too, and they can learn to be proud of making the right choice not to hatch chicks that will not have good homes. If you have to make that decision with your students, be sure to offer praise to the kids for being caring enough to make such a hard, disappointing decision. What a mature thing!
For that reason, discuss the project with your students throughout the process. You can ask them to brainstorm places to look for homes, questions to ask potential adopters, best brooder set-up designs, proper chick care and brooder clean-up schedule, etc.
After all, a hatching project doesn't begin at incubation, it begins long before when you start taking responsible steps to care for the living creatures you are hatching--they are totally dependent on you to provide them care. If you can teach your kids to make such responsible decisions during the process, it's still a successful hatching project in our book, even if you don't get to incubate a single solitary egg.
Rule 6: Find the best fertile eggs for your needs!
Once you have identified good homes, you will need to purchase eggs, and you will want the best ones for your needs! In most cases--so long as your adopters are happy with them--you can hatch very common breeds that you can find locally or even mixed breeds from a local farm flock. Generally speaking, we encourage those planning classroom projects to try to find eggs locally, if possible, so the hatch rate will be better. Remember, shipped eggs (from any source) have a reduced hatch rate due to the stresses of shipping: hot trucks, cold warehouses, pressure changes in flight, bumpy roads, turbulence, and so on.For that reason, when organizing a hatching projects at school, you will generally want to incubate more eggs of less expensive breeds so you can afford more eggs for the same cost, making the risk for disappointment lower.
That said, if you can't find acceptable eggs locally, My Pet Chicken has a special selection of less expensive fertile eggs for educational projects.
As you see, this inexpensive selection available for educational projects only consists of a hatchery choice assortment of a few friendly and popular dual-purpose varieties that usually get along well with other birds in a mixed flock.
Rule 7: Prepare your students--and yourself!--for the trials and tribulations of hatching.
When you have a classroom full of kids, it can be very disappointing to get a bad hatch rate, so you will want to be sure to prepare them to understand both the best-case scenario and the worst-case scenario. If something goes wrong during the incubation process, your hatch rate will drop. It's even possible to get a zero hatch rate, even when you are very experienced with hatching eggs--that has happened to me before!Be sure to let your kids know how delicate an operation incubation can be. Some kids are so excited they want to lift the incubator lid and handle the eggs. Unless you tell them, they may not understand that letting out heat and humidity so frequently can cause the developing chicks to die, and they may not understand how sensitive some incubator thermostats can be. A very small adjustment made by a well-meaning child may send temperatures skyrocketing to 120 degrees or more--way too hot. So, make sure everyone knows the rules of incubation, too.
If you do get a bad hatch rate, this can be a teaching moment, too. You can open the eggs to look to see what may have gone wrong as we direct in our troubleshooting guide.
This is an opportunity for the kids and you to play detective. Was it too hot, too cold, too dry, or too wet? Did an overnight power outage cause a problem when many chicks died on day 13? To repeat, a hatching project can be a success, even if you don't get a single chick to hatch, if your kids learn about responsibility and critical thinking.
