What came first? The Chicken or the Egg?

Room 12 will hopefully have 12 baby chicks running around in roughly 21 days.  So far, they are doing great. Below you will find some pictures of our progress. More will be coming soon... 

In the picture above you see the incubator where the eggs are located. The incubator mimics the job of the hen who sits on her eggs until they hatch. The incubator is set at a constant temperature of 99.5 degrees throughout the incubation process. The eggs were placed on April 3rd and are expected to hatch on April 24th. (21 days) Also in this picture you will see a bottle of Germ-x. It is very important that while handling the eggs, our hands are VERY clean with minimal bacteria. Eggs are very porous and contract bacteria from our hands. 

Day 5 

In this picture, the egg is being candled. We candle the eggs to check development and fertility. In this picture you can see the embryo forming (it looks like a spider). On the fifth day of development, the reproductive organs start forming. In a few days, we might begin seeing the embryos move! So cool!