Rent a Chicken

Not sure if you wish to make a commitment to having chickens in your backyard. Before making a long-term commitment - try renting a chicken coupe and a few chickens for six months. There are two companies in BC that rent chickens and coupes. Click here to find rent a chicken organization in your area.







Click here for a newspaper article about renting chickens.

Egg #9 was first to pip

We could see late this afternoon (Monday. April 25, 2016) that the first egg (#9) has pipped. Egg #11 pipped secondly. This does not mean these eggs will be the first to hatch.

Pipping is defined as (of a young bird) crack (the shell of the egg) when hatching.

The incubator is on lock-down. This means that the glass covering should NOT be removed -- this is why the video is taken through the glass.

Look for the live feed tomorrow http://www.youtube.com/c/ChristopherRozitis/live at 9 am (pacific) -- there will be lots of action.

Live Video Stream Link

Click on the YouTube icon to be part of the discussion. What would be good names for the chicks and which one will hatch first?

The eggs are from the following type of chickens:
1 - Mystery egg - we are not sure which hen laid​ this egg.
2 - Orpington
3 - Wyandotte
4 - Australorp
5 - Black Copper Marans
6 - Ameraucana
7 - Rode Island Red
8 - Australorp
9 - Rode Island Red
10 - Orpington
11 - Easter Egger - green egg

Which egg will hatch first?

The eggs are supposed to begin hatching on Tuesday, April 26th, 2016.

The live video stream will be available between 9 am and 2:30 pm (pacific) from Monday, April 25 to Friday, April 29th, 2016.

The following recording is from the live stream from Friday, April 22.


Which egg do you think will hatch first?

Day 15 of the chicken hatch

Today was the 15th day of the chick hatch. We candled again today. Candling is like shining a flashlight into your mouth - you get to see what is inside. Candling is the same, but you are looking inside of an egg. It is used to test whether an egg is fertilized or not. It is also to see whether the embryo is developing as it should.

Lat week the embryo was a small dot -- about the size of a pea. Today you will notice in the video, the chick has grown quit significantly. You should be able to see movement of the chick, more blood vessels, and the air sac should be larger than last week. 

The chick's skull, beak, claws and scales on the legs all begin to become much firmer and the 'egg tooth', which will be used to break out of the shell, hardens. The 'egg tooth' will drop off the chick after it hatches. 

We started with 12 eggs and noticed last week, one of them was not fertilized. This week we noticed that all the eggs were healthy and we might get better than a 70% success rate. 

The following are the 11 eggs that were fertilized. Which one do you think will hatch first?

Day 7 - Candling the chicken eggs

This video shows how to candle a chicken egg. Candling is like shining a flashlight into your mouth - you get to see what is inside. Candling is the same, but you are looking inside of an egg. It is used to test whether an egg is fertilized or not. It is also to see whether the embryo is developing as it should.



At day 7 one should be able to see a black dot with blood vessels. There should also be a small air sac at the big end of the egg.

How to video stream - using YouTube

A student of mine help me set up a video stream. The how-to video - shows how to set up your computer to do a live video stream. 

Why did the chicken cross the road?

This riddle first appeared in 1847 edition of a New York City magazine - The Knickerbocker.

The obvious answer is "to get to the other side of the road."

Isaac Newton said  "Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. Chickens in motion tend to cross roads."

Do you have any other answers?

Before you start you need to consider...

Having an incubator in the classroom is big responsibility. I found the following BC SPCA position statement after starting the incubation of the chicken eggs in my class. 

http://goo.gl/DLFYXl

The BC SPCA has the following concerns when hatching eggs in the classroom:

• Hatching eggs in an incubator is not natural.
  
• How do you know that the egg(s) are fertilized before putting them in the incubator?
  
• Eggs are a commondity - a raw material or primary agricultural product that can be bought and sold. Is this what you are discussing?
• What happens if the power goes out? Do you have a backup power system? The temperature and relative humidity would change with no power.
• Can you garantee the eggs will hatch while you are at school? What happens if they hatch a Friday night and there is no one there to look after them until Monday morning?
• Does the teacher have expertise in hatching eggs?
• If you are video streaming -- why can you not put the camera(s) on the farm?
• The 'cute' factor. All new born animals are cute and this is engaging -- but how is this educational?

These are some of the questions a school and teacher must consider before starting a hatching program in the classroom. 

The following is a response to a ≈2005 'feel good' news paper article about hatching eggs in the classroom. The article was in the Peace Arch News. Sorry I do not have the exact date or link to the article.
  

There is a delicate balance when it comes to the use of animals in the classroom. Though the intentions to give students hands on experience are good, underlying lessons about devaluing animals for human benefit purposes can also be learned. Is raising chicks in an artificial environment really necessary to demonstrate life cycles to preschoolers? Could they not learn this through a video and a visit to a farm? A mother hen cares for her eggs very differently than a human does with an incubator. 

Understanding the care and natural instincts of a mother hen with her chicks is an important part of the equation completely underestimated when hatching chicks in an incubator. Yet it can be more compelling than the actual hatching, which may or may not happen when the students are at school. 

If we continue to use animals for science, in zoos and aquariums under the guise of education, are we reinforcing the idea that it is ok to deprive animals of a natural environment, family bonding, etc as long as humans are entertained and are “learning”. Is providing the students with a live action “birth” more important than the lives put at risk through incubation? It may be more exciting, but what is the real message. 

Encouraging students to think critically about how and why we use animals in society as well as developing empathy for animals by thinking about these situations from an animal’s perspective, might be a more educational experience and fit in more directly with the new BC curriculum. 

The BC SPCA’s position on hatching and breeding programs in the classroom states: “The BC SPCA opposes breeding and hatching programs in schools that include incubation and artificial environments. These animals require specialized care and a calm environment generally not provided in a classroom.” 

Animals are such an important part of our lives; the educational lessons we pass along to future generations should not be clouded with lessons we have inherited from the past. 

Paula Neuman, Humane Education Supervisor, BC SPCA

What are the learning outcomes for the activity? Is there a better way of accomplishing the outcomes that will benefit the students and not harm the animals? 

Chicken Egg Embryonic Development

https://youtu.be/ This video was edited with Camtasia (https://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.html). Camtasia allows the editor to add overlays or callouts (arrows, text boxes etc) as well as closed captioning.
In this video, you will see a why there are different size of chicken eggs; how to determine if an egg is fertilized; and some of the differences between a store bought eggs and farm eggs.

Timeline:
Introduction 0:00
Goose egg 0:10
Pullet egg 00:26
Inside the egg 01:13
Fertilized or not 02:02
Blastoderm 02:06
Albumin 03:06
Fertilized or not 04:01

Learn how to create shimmering hummingbird feather

At the Vancouver Learning Network, I teach a variety of classes (photography, physics, biology, jr. sciences, digital media and computer science). I came across this lesson that might be interesting to students in digital media -- it is on how to create feathers with Adobe Illustrator. Click here to view the lesson.

Send us your feather images.

Ducklings

Raquel brought in some ducklings this afternoon. They are about 1 week old.

They are Muscovy ducklings. Here is an image of a parent Muscoy duck.

Day two - first live stream

Today we are live streaming the eggs. The stream will be available for a couple of hours. Liam a John Oliver student, in the next few days will explain how to create a live stream.

Day One

Today we put in 12 eggs into the incubator. The incubator should be a constant temperature of 99.5^oF and have a relative humidity of 44.5^oF.

Why does the temperature have to be 99.5^oF?

How many eggs does a hen lay in one year?

How many days before the eggs will hatch?

What type of chickens will hatch from the eggs that we have?

What is relative humidity?

Why is there a bottle of water behind the incubator?

Here is a sibling that was hatched naturally today.

Look for these answers and more fun facts in the next week.

Types of chickens

These are images (from Wikipedia) of different types of chickens.

The Australorp, an Australian breed

The d'Everberg, a Belgian ornamental bantam

Black Shumen cock

A Silkie hen

Cubalaya cock

Crèvecœur

La Flèche

Faverolles

The longtailed Phoenix, a German breed derived from the Japanese Onagadori

The auto-sexing Bielefelder, created in the 70s

The Aseel, a fighting breed

Sumatra cock

The Orloff, an Iranian breed

Leghorn hen

The Barnevelder

Naked-neck

A Minorca rooster

The Appenzeller, a rare Swiss crested breed

The Sultan, a Turkish breed

A Buff Orpington cock

An Araucana

Barred Plymouth Rock, a dual-purpose breed

Modern Game Fowl

Golden Sebright cockerel

What other types of chickens are there? In the next few days we will post the different types of chickens we are using and the colour of their egs.

Day 0

Here are the 12 eggs that we will try to hatch. Approximately 70% of the eggs will hatch. Over the next few weeks we will be posting information about chickens and the process of hatching eggs.

How many eggs do you think will hatch in 21 days?

What happens inside an egg

Inside an Egg
Bird Wings on Monday, March 28, 2016

WHAT HAPPENS INSIDE AN EGG. You will enter a fertilized egg to witness a bird's embryonic development. Spectacular animation and live action footage document the extraordinary 21-day process of organization and growth from a fertilized egg.