UPDATE 2021: Every few years we get some chicken eggs, usually donated from a local rancher and do our best to hatch some baby chicks. We did it again here in 2021 and had great luck! Out of the 6 eggs, we hatched 4 super cute baby chicks. 2 black and 2 yellow. Needless to say, the children and teachers were thrilled!

It’s always so exciting when the baby chicks hatch here at Mary’s School House. The teachers, children and their parents are overjoyed. During the incubation period the children and the teachers keep a close eye on the chicken eggs while they are housed in the incubator for 20 days. This is a bit of a wait for small children, so we purchased a scope which enables the kids to see inside the eggs. It really helps the children participate the process and adds to the learning process.

New Yellow Baby Chicks — Hatched in 2021

You never really know if the eggs are even fertile, which is why it’s best to incubate at least three eggs instead of one or two. Recently, here in 2021, on the 21st day we hatched a healthy new baby chick! Within a few days we hatched 3 more chicks. The little peepers grow pretty quickly and seem to love all the attention they receive from the kids.

This has been a wonderful life science project for the children and so much fun for us all. It’s something most of the the kids will remember forever. They get to see, first hand chicken start from the egg, hatch and grow. Unfortunately, we still don’t have an answer to what came first, the chicken or the egg, but from the kids view, the egg came first. First they see the eggs, then a few weeks later they see newly hatched baby chicks.

How To Hatch Baby Chicks

If you have a home child care or preschool and interested in hatching a baby chick, you’ll first need an incubator and three eggs. The incubator comes with instructions and the one we have automatically rotates the eggs and keeps track of the hatch date. You can easily find the incubator and eggs online. Instead of ordering eggs online, we’ve had better luck getting our eggs from a local farm or ranch. The eggs have the best chance of hatching and once hatched, we always return the chicks back to their home to join their siblings.

Anyway, you place the three eggs in the incubator and wait. In about 21 days you should hatch a new baby chick! Once hatched, the chick stays in the incubator for the first 24 hours before moving it to it’s temporary box, the same box the incubator comes in. It was a fun project for the children and the teachers, especially when the new baby chick hatched at Mary’s schoolhouse in Valencia.

If you’re looking for home child care in the Valencia area you may contact Mary Gregory at 661-210-7617.