It’s been a very busy week here in the shop- incubation season is starting. So it’s probably way past time that I actually started the story of how we ended up with our ‘school chooks’: Bruce the rooster and the hens Dark Specks and Speckles – both of whom laid lovely brown eggs today.
We didn’t actually find out about the incubator being in the classroom till a Friday afternoon, after school when ‘The Boy’ said “We’ve got eggs in our classroom. They are going to grew into baby chickens.” Naturally we were interested and so on Monday morning went to investigate. There were 15 eggs, in a manual turn incubator and the teacher hadn’t been told much about it….so there was no water in the incubator and the eggs hadn’t been turned since they arrived. Jeff and I looked at each other and started wondering where we could source some day old chicks, if the eggs didn’t hatch! So we filled up the water tray, turned the eggs and volunteered to help.
The next day Jeff brought a candler to check the eggs out and to his amazement 14 of the eggs appeared to have growing chickens… and some were very close to hatching size. So he filled up the second water tray and we kept on eye on them everyday at drop off and pick up. I think the first chicken appeared on the Thursday, because when I come to pick up the incubator on the Friday afternoon there were 2 chickens and some more eggs pipping.
…Continued in Part 2. Got to dash to do the school run. Take care Helen
