Hatching FAQ
Here are some answers to commonly asked questions about the School Egg Hatching Program as well as general hatching information not in other sections of this guide.
TIMELINE
How long does the program last?
From drop off to pick up the entire process lasts around one month
In the example schedule that you can see below the eggs are delivered on Monday, the 4th of May (Step 2), and the chicks are returned to Pips Farm on Friday, the 5th of June. In this example the eggs are chicken eggs, which incubate for 21 days total - but there are two stages of the process, incubation and hatch. On Wednesday, the 6th of May, the eggs are placed into the incubator having rested for around 48hrs (Step 3). The incubation stage lasts 18 days, but because of the constraints of weekends and having the students participate in each stage we are going to "lock down" the eggs and prepare for the hatching stage on Monday, the 25th of May (Step 4).
Ideally the hatching of the eggs occurs on the Wednesday, May 27th (Step 5), though it could happen as soon as Tuesday or as late as Thursday. On Friday, the 27th of May, the chicks are transferred to the brooder (Step 6) where they will remain in your care for one week. On Friday, the 5th of June, the chicks are collected and return to Pips Farm.
EASY, MEDIUM, AND HARD
Picking the right species
Nobody ever said that hatching quail would be easy
We have graded our various poultry species with Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulties. Choosing the right type of bird to incubate might be compelled by your availability, the age of your students, and your experience with hatching chicks.
Chickens are the easiest and there are very few problems you might encounter. They are hardy, medium sized, have a low mortality, and more often than not if an egg zippers you will eventually see a chick emerge from the shell. They can eat and drink well, do not need any special considerations, and the process is usually seamless.
Quail are assigned a medium difficulty and most of that is due to their higher mortality. It may be disturbing for young kids to see a quail laying deceased in its water dish or under the heat plate - and it's not always much better for the teacher if they don't have experience with livestock mortality. Quail are notorious for discovering new and novel ways to unalive themselves and each other, and though it is part and parcel of hatching their eggs, it might be something that you would prefer to avoid. Quail chicks also have a tendency to drown, which is why the water dish provided is so small. The down side of the water dish size is the need to refill it. If you chose quail you may be needed during the weekend to provide them with fresh water, but with the schedule that would only occur on one weekend before the chicks are collected.
Turkey eggs are sometimes available as well and we assigned the difficulty of "hard" for them, and it's almost entirely due to their higher likelihood to explode in the incubator. Close monitoring of the eggs can prevent that, but if it does occur it can have a much worse impact on a classroom than mortalities. The foul odor from an egg that has exploded can hardly be described - but it's something that anyone would opt to avoid. You can take our word for it. In the event an egg explodes that requires an emergency equipment and egg recovery, and the program is terminated. The remainder of the eggs are no longer considered viable and the incubator has to be completely disassembled and sterilized as soon as possible.
A STUCK CHICK
One chick *almost* hatched
What to do when a chick has not totally emerged
Farming can have some unfortunate realities, and hatching chicks is no exception. There is a chance that chicks hatch with underdeveloped appendages or other birth defects that can cause mortality and you feel like you should remove it from the incubator - don't. Sometimes a chick appears to be stuck to the inside of their egg and you would like to just pick that little bit of egg off - don't. Chicks can appear stuck between an egg and the incubator dome - just leave it. Sometimes chicks look like they are attacking other chicks and pecking at them and you are tempted to remove the aggressor - don't,
Once the hatching stage has begun, where the rotating disk has been removed and we are in "lock down" to hatch, the incubator should not be opened for any reason. The incubator is opened at the end of the hatching stage, regardless of one chick appearing to need assistance, and this is to ensure the health of the majority is not sacrificed to try to intervene and save the few.
If a chick still has a bit of shell stuck to it come time to place it in the brooder, place it in shell and all, call us, and we can determine a course of action. If a chick has balled up feet and appears to have difficulty walking, place it in the brooder and call us to determine a course of action. Most of the time these small issues correct themselves after a day or two, and if needed we can come in and monitor the situation ourselves.
CHICK MORTALITY
The cycle of life
What to do with a chick who doesn't survive
We ask that everything that is not consumed by the chicks is returned to us. That includes eggs that don't hatch, eggs that partially hatch, and chicks who do not survive. The best course of action when dealing with chick mortality is to place them in a ziplock bag and put them in a freezer. You can wrap it in paper towel, double or triple bag it, or place it in another container if discretion is required. If freezing the chick is not an option then please call us so we can decide the next course of action, which might mean recovering the chick immediately.
Chicks and eggs are not just assets - they may also be proprietary breeds or lineages. Though we generally don't provide eggs that are essentially intellectual property as well as assets to our farm, it could happen. Quail phenotypes that are useful for instruction may also take a long time to breed and chicken varieties sometimes cost hundreds of dollars for a single individual breeder. Our turkeys are a rare heritage breed, in face Canada's only heritage breed, and we have a lot of investment into the lineages we have acquired.
As breeders we have poured time, energy, and literally tens of thousands of dollars into our breeding programs, from unique feather-footed black chickens with fibromelanosis, to pure bred Zombie chickens derived from selectively bred Hmong chickens. With this in mind, participants to our program are liable for returning the assets to us regardless of whether they survive or become deceased. Even eggs that do not hatch need to be inspected to determine the cause and to track any fertility and hatching issues.
OOPS
We dropped an egg
What to do when an egg is damaged or destroyed
We ask that you save the remains of the egg for us to dispose of ourselves. The shell can be placed in a ziplock bag or another container and frozen, or it can be allowed to dry. We need to account for all outgoing and incoming assets, and that egg is pretty important to us. We will definitely not be upset if an egg is damaged or destroyed in the process, it happens to the best of us, but we need to collect 12 shells if we delivered 12 eggs - regardless of their condition, if they hatched, if it's just chunks, or if it still has a deceased chick attached to it. The worst case scenario is that we need to visit on an emergency drop in and collect our assets because there is no option to store it.
All of our eggs have indicators on them that we can identify at the farm. Please do not attempt to swap out an egg, a shell, or a part of a shell. We can identify, without any difficulty, whether an egg shell is from our farm or has been sourced externally. The value of our IP requires us to be diligent, and even if the entire carton of eggs was dropped and all the eggs need to be replaced, we can live with that. We can collect the damaged eggs, replace them with a fresh batch of fertilized eggs, and the program can resume with only a small hiccup.
CONTRACT
You are responsible
We require every participant to sign a simple contract
We are not lawyers and our contracts reflect our casual approach at agreements. Simple language, short and concise, no legalese. Participants agree they are responsible for all assets. Eggs, chicks, and all equipment that isn't a consumable will be returned in good condition. The participant is responsible for any equipment damaged and at the time the chicks are collected a checklist is made and signed by Pips Farm and the participant.
"Good condition" means the incubator is covered in chick stuff, caked on, there's something growing in the bottles, the incubator dome is so filthy it needs to be disassembled to be cleaned, some disgusting material has been cooked into the incubator base, the heat plate is caked with guano, and the feed and water dishes were also used regularly as toilets. Hatching makes a mess - we know that.
"Bad condition" means the equipment has to be replaced, no question, and other classrooms who are waiting for the equipment to be available will miss out. It has to be reordered.
Even if we do not intend to hold you financially liable, which is likely the case because accidents happen and this program exists because teachers have a tight budget as it is, please pretend we do intend to hold you financially liable and conduct yourself accordingly.