Wednesday, May 23, 2012

More on the Birds

When I left the school at 4:30 today, we were up to 14 chicks. I moved 10 over to the brooder and the other 4 still need some more drying out time. 


It appears that the iPad as a webcam is not as wonderful as it seemed. The live stream ends up timing out eventually. Thus, there is no live stream tonight, but I will get it up and running again when I am back in the classroom in the morning. 


Chicken Update

As of 10:41 this morning, we have 13 hatched chicks.  I have moved 7 chicks over to the brooder box, where they can eat some chicken feed and drink some water. 

I changed the live camera over to the iPad. UStream has a great app that is allowing me to use the iPad camera. Wish I had thought of that 2 nights ago. I left the microphone on, hoping that maybe the peeping will come through the live video. 

I also added a second Live Stream for the brooder box so you can see the fluffy chickens mulling around. From what I can tell, they like to get a lot of sleep...just like baby humans!


Monday, May 21, 2012

The Chickens are Coming! The Chickens are Coming!

Tonight, tomorrow and Wednesday, we should see our chickens emerging from their shells. You can click on play on the webcam to the right of this blog entry. I apologize for the ads, but it is a free way to stream our chickies live.

They have been incubating for 20 days. Tuesday is day 21...Hatch Day! There may be an early bird or two tonight. The majority should hatch tomorrow. There also may be a few late bloomers that hatch on Wednesday.

We have been checking the embryos' development by "candling" the eggs. We shine a light through the egg in a dark place (the preschool bathroom). The egg will show a dark spot where the developing chick is. When we last candled, we thought we could see a good 15 chicks that were developing. There were a few that did not look like they were fertilized at all. And then there were about another 15 that were too dark to be able to tell what was going on in the egg.

I am quite sure a few will hatch. As I am typing this next to the incubator, I keep hearing peeps from inside the eggs.  YAY!!! That's a good sign.


Fairfield Laboratory Preschool Information

(802) 827-6639 in the Fairfield Center School
School Website: ffcsvt.org/