A farmer contacted us to say a chicken had laid too many eggs, so we are going to look after some until they’ve hatched and are big enough to go back to the farm!

We have been carefully observing the eggs so we will notice any changes. Any day now!

We have been thinking of questions about chickens. We need the answers so we know how to look after the chicks when they have hatched!

We have done some careful observational drawing of the eggs. We learned about drafting and improving, our final drafts were amazing!

Today we have the most exciting news - our first egg has hatched so now we have a chick!

First thing this morning, there was one egg that had pipped. Look closely to see if you can find the tiny crack. What an exciting moment this was!

The following videos show how the chick hatched.

Watch his space for new arrivals, several other eggs are starting to pip...

On Thursday evening, many more of the chicks hatched. Now there are NINE new baby chicks to look after. 

On Friday morning, all the new chicks were fluffed up and were ready to move to the brood box. A brood box is a safe environment for the chicks to move around and they can have a heat lamp, food and water. 

The children were very excited to see our new chicks when they arrived at school. Everyone was respectful, compassionate and kind, using gentle voices and carefully observing their new classmates!

When we had a brain break this morning, the chicks all seemed to join in and then fell asleep!

Through the day the chicks were given their names - mostly chosen by the children in year 2.

Our chicks are called…
Nicky

Annabel

Sandra

Ed

Spencer

Poppy

Connor

Fluffy

Cutie

The older chicks had begun eating chick crumb during the daytime on Friday, by the evening all the chicks were getting hungry!

The chicks huddle under the heat lamp to stay warm because they are so small and so young.

The chicks are even more busy this morning! They’ve been busy eating, drinking and messing. Mrs Jones has followed the instructions we wrote as a class on Friday to help with looking after the chicks. All living things excrete, so this morning there was a messy job to do. 

The chicks were all carefully moved into a box to keep them safe. Each chick was carefully checked to make sure it was healthy. 

Then all the dirty shavings and wood shavings were removed before the bottom of the brood box was wiped clean. Then paper was placed into the bottom of the box and clean wood shavings added under the heat lamp. The feed bowl was cleaned out and new food added. Chicks make their water feeder dirty really quickly so this was emptied, cleaned and refilled too. The cage is now much cleaner. The chicks were carefully placed back into the cage where they explored and tucked into their clean food and water! This has to be done really quickly so the chicks don’t get cold, as they are still really young.

By Sunday, one or two of the chicks have already started to lose some of their downy fluff and begun growing feathers!

We have looked after the chicks really well all week. Our chicks have had their five basic needs met: food, water, shelter, climate and oxygen! The chicks are growing really big and starting to grow feathers. They are ready to go back to their mummy, so the farmer has taken them back to the farm now. We loved having chicks!

We said goodbye to our chicks this morning.

We carefully observed the chicks and how they’ve changed. We then painted a picture using watercolours.

We have a tortoise in class for the rest of term. We will be using what we know about animals and how to look after chicks to look after her. Her name is Gracie, she is a reptile. We have spent time today looking at her closely to see the differences between reptiles and other classifications of animals we have already seen such as birds and mammals.