weird weird e-mail inquiry i got yesturday...

i will put what she wrote in bold .....mine is regular text now this is the weirdest email i have got in a long time....

how much for a dozen eggs (variety of breeds preferred) about 2 days away from hatch? I dont need an incubator as i do have my own

What do you mean 2 days away from hatch? A doz mixed eggs from me are 45 that's 3 of each breed
Janet


I mean that I'd like to pick up the eggs when they are about ready to hatch


You midaswell buy chicks then its to dangerous for them to get cooled off for the trip


Are these chickens less hardy than regular chickens? There is a hatchery called millers that does this for classrooms and sells you the dozen eggs and they hatch in 2 days. They have always send me home with the eggs in a egg carton for insulation. And I have never had an egg not hatch. I saw your ad and loved the coloring so thought we'd see if we could do the same through you.



no sorry i wont do that!

This is a big thing in the classrooms TripleJ. Not that strange of a request at all from my experiences with strange requests.
What people want is to show kids/people/whoever the joy of the hatch without the time invested in the entire incubation period. They then get the educational part of how a chick comes of of an egg, and then the joy of the baby chicks. Win Win for them.
I have yet to do that since all the schools I sell hatching eggs to are quite a distance away and I would worry the eggs would get too chilled.
There is a farm in Cochrane area that does this for schools as well, mostly with duck eggs.
I guess if you were to go ahead and do it, you would have just charge them as if they were buying baby chicks. You could candle the eggs to know they are viable before they leave, after that it is up to them.

This is a totally legit question from a non chicken person. Yes, in the past Millers would sell you a dozen eggs, 2 days from hatching, along with a rented hovabator. You could take the eggs that had been incubated in their mega-bator, all live and ready to hatch, and hatch them out in your own classroom, usually with 100% success.

This lady probably has her own hovabator and wants ready-to-hatch eggs.

And yes, it works! I have done this myself. Insulate the eggs and a half hour to an hour drive will not affect hatchability.

Sue

I do this for our Kids' Club every spring. Instead of having the incubator there for the entire time, which can get boring for youngsters, I take it in on a Friday afternoon on day 18. I use an inverter in my truck to plug the incubator in for the trip and I transport the eggs in egg cartaon inside the incubator so they are stable and then drive very carefully I get there and set the incubator up and set in the eggs. I also set up a brooder box with light and food. When the teachers get there Monday morning they plug the light in and warm up the brooder before the kids get there. Monday morning is day 21 and there usually is plenty of 'action' going on or at least started so the kids can see the hatch throughout the day. Works very well. I also only take in 'good' eggs and have nearly a 100% hatch rate Monday/Tuesday and the chicks stay at the school until Friday afternoon. I just pop in from time to time to help or answer tons of questions. It becomes their spring project and I get written reports and pictures. They then to come to my house for a tour and hands on.
Has been a great success every year.

Saddens me that I am not able to do it anymore for them.....I do have a couple of friends willing to take over though

I've been experimenting with cooling eggs during incubation. There's a link to a report on trials at an Egyptian University that cooled eggs for 6 hours on day 16 and had an improved hatch rate. My trial didn't increase hatch rate, but didn't interfere with it either. We've also had extended power outages, even during a hatch, that didn't do any damage. My only caution would be to make sure the eggs don't get chilled lower than about 72 F.

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i guess i am just unclear of what this teaches the kids tho? other than you put eggs in incubator for a day they hatch... when i was in school i remember us having a incubator in the classroom and we all couldnt wait until they would hatch it seemed like forever! every day asking the teacher "when are they gonna hatch?" but when the day came we were all thrilled to death! all of us would stare into the incubator every day LOL . i guess things are different now in schools everything is so fast paced, you get what you want immediatly...humm...

.....along with the 'fast hatch' I would have presentation, posters, pictures, videos, etc to explain the process. The reason for my having the incubator there over the weekend was to avoid youngsters from fiddling with things and destroying the hatch. They all would get to see the incubator and hear the explanation of how long it really takes. Oh! and the anticipation of coming back on the Monday to a hatching incubator. 3 weeks is a long go to have to check on things everyday. I once found the incubator had been turned up and the thermometer reading 112...needless to say that was a sad day.
Also these kids had 'tours' at my house and the incubation room where they would get to see various stages of incubation and candling. It was amazing how quiet 25 kids would get when the lights went out and they could see a duckling or gosling inside the egg moving around.

I made sure this wasn't understood as an 'instant process' . It was very gratifying for all involved, really it was

triplejfarms wrote:i guess i am just unclear of what this teaches the kids tho? other than you put eggs in incubator for a day they hatch... when i was in school i remember us having a incubator in the classroom and we all couldnt wait until they would hatch it seemed like forever! every day asking the teacher "when are they gonna hatch?" but when the day came we were all thrilled to death! all of us would stare into the incubator every day LOL . i guess things are different now in schools everything is so fast paced, you get what you want immediatly...humm...

I do agree with this to a certain extent as well TripleJ. I sent eggs with my neice (duck eggs) to her school, her teacher was quite excited and used the entire process to teach the kids differnt things. Like in Art class they used the candling to describe opaque and clear, lines, etc. The kids were thrilled when those opaque areas started forming and making little moving beings.
All the kids had seperate groups and when the ducklings hatched each group got a duckling to name, and take care of. They would even take them out to the grass on a walk every day, and the ducklings made many class room tours around their school. At 2 weeks old them come back to my farm where they finnished their growing. I got reports on the ducklings when I picked them up and the entire school thanked us for the educational experience.

Teachers using this shortened method have the chicks hatch as part of their unit on animal reproduction. There is plenty of teaching that goes with it and the children certainly don't think of it as an instant process.

When I taught grade 2 and had animal life cycles as a unit we had baby mice, guppies, earthworms, mealworms, isopods, and chicken eggs. The children had an all-inclusive look at life cycles thet did not just include the end result. I have never heard of a teacher plunking an incubator of hatching chicks in the class without a lot of pre and post teaching. What a waste of time.

Sue

I do this quite often. Teachers dont want to do the full hatch because the kids get so excited they are always opening the lid and touching the eggs. Therefor they get a poor hatch. If the eggs are going to hatch in 2 days it is easier for the teacher to control.

Is you google Mink Hollow Farms.... this is what they do mostly. (I think)

If anyone cares to know, there is an excellent episode of the "Magic School Bus" cartoon on the incubation period of chicken eggs. Very well done - I even learned stuff from it!!! They explain how eggs are fertilized (in a very simple way, ie "there has to be a rooster" - which many adults do not know), and how the chick grows from day 1-21. Highly recommended if you have any need for such age appropriate stuff. Most teachers have access to all the "Magic School Bus" episodes from their school district resource centre.

I have not had poeple ask for eggs that are just a few days away from hatching but is other people have then I guess I have just missed it.