Leslie County 4-H’s Chick Incubation program continues to grow. In the past our focus was to place incubators in all 3^rd grade classrooms. Not only were we able to do that, but we also placed an incubator in our local high school’s Agriculture class and the FMD classroom. We also had Stinnet Elementary request and incubator for their FMD room and Mountain View requested one for their 4^th grade class. Therefore, we had 10 incubators placed throughout our county. We also set incubators at our office to have as back up in case of a power outage or issue with an incubator at the schools. Leslie County has 4 grade schools and 1 high school which targeted 10 individual classrooms. An estimated 150 youth participated in this project. We visited classrooms each week to provide a new lesson.

Chick Incubation is a 21-day process and requires fertilized chicken eggs, an egg incubator to help control temperature, humidity and egg turning. The incubator replicates the mother hen’s environment with a warm moist environment for the rest of the gestation period for the chick. Chick Incubation is a excellent way to teach youth about nature, responsibility, science, caring from animals and life cycles.

Youth learned about embryology, habitats, parts of an egg, egg nutrition, different types of breeds, the process of incubation/important factors for incubating successfully, how to care for the eggs inside incubators, hatching predictions using the candling method and how to care for the chicks after hatching. 

We always plan Chick Incubation so that we have baby chicks before the Easter holiday. Therefore we began our project February 27,  2024. We picked up 9 dozen eggs from UK’s POULTRY RESEARCH FACILITY in Versailles, KY. Those breeds were Rhode Island Red, Black Australop and Barred Plymouth Rock. We also picked up eggs from a local farmer in Leslie County. They supplied us with green eggs that Mr. Garry and I described as mystery eggs to our participants. Those eggs came from Araucana's  commonly known as Easter Egg chickens. We strategically place a variety of eggs into each incubator. Each egg is shown along with an example of what the chicken who laid the egg looks like. The last few years we have used stuffed animal chickens to represent our different breeds. This is a great opportunity to show diversity. The eggs are all different sizes, colors and shapes. 

The first week youth learned how the incubators operated, how to maintain them and they watched Mr. Garry and I carefully place each egg inside. The mystery egg, which in this case was green had an X drawn on it. This helps us to correctly identify that the incubator is properly rotating the eggs. The incubator is often referred to as Mother Hen or The Nest. Each child is provided with a coloring sheet that has 20 eggs and a cupcake for the final day, hatch day! Each day youth color an egg and to help count down the 21 day process. The second week we provided a healthy egg cup sample with the recipe to each child. They learned each part of the egg and all about an eggs nutritional value. Along with this lesson we provide a paper egg that has been folded and has each part of the egg labeled. Our final week we candled the eggs and made predictions on how many eggs would hatch.

The chicks hatched during the last week of March.  Once chicks hatched, they were brought back to Leslie County Extension where they waited for their new homes. In the beginning of our project, letters were sent home that explained what we were doing and had our phone number so that youth who had established flocks at home were gave the option to adopt the baby chicks. The rest were sold as a 4-H Fundraiser!

This has become a favorite project over the years, and it’s something everyone looks forward too! Each child who participated received an evaluation on the last day of Chick Incubation. They were asked if they learned about the life cycle of a chicken, the nutrition of an egg and how to properly care for the eggs/chicks. We asked them to write their favorite part of Chick Incubation at the bottom. 

100% of the students stated they learned about the life cycle of a chicken. 

97% of the students stated they learned about Egg Nutrition.

98% of the students learned how to properly care for eggs/chicks.

My favorite part of Chick Incubation was….

WB Muncy 3^rd grader, “That 2 chicks hatched on my birthday!”

Hayes Lewis 3^rd grader, “Watching how the chicks grew by candling the eggs.”

Hayes Lewis 3^rd grader, “the food during our nutrition lesson!”

Stinnet 3^rd grader, “I enjoyed meeting everybody because they were super nice to us, and Garry was funny!”

Mountain View 3^rd grader, “holding the baby chicks.”

Mountain View 3^rd grader, “Mrs. Jace and Mr. Garry teaching us.” 

Mountain View 3^rd grader, “That there was a mystery egg!”