Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

The fertile egg: it is usually best if any eggs you want to incubate/hatch are no more than ten days old as although the sperm may have fertilised the eggs, it is getting a bit old by then and may not be as viable. Usually, the fresher the eggs the better!!

There is a lot of advice about how to store eggs that you want to hatch BUT our owners simply make sure they are clean, able to breathe (i.e. not in an enclosed box), and not in a room that gets too hot or cold.

Sensibly you would not want to hatch any eggs that are funny shapes or have marks on them: the idea is that a perfect looking egg will hopefully produce a perfect chick!!! And by the way, it is perfectly okay to eat a fertilized egg; it is exactly the same as a non-fertilsed one. Only when you start to incubate the eggs does the egg start to change!!!