We offer quality learning experiences for children.
We offer quality learning experiences for children.
This is a project for Pre School but we will of course share it with the younger children in the Toddler and Baby rooms too.
We have 7 duckling eggs to care for over the next two weeks, they arrived on Monday morning. The eggs should start to hatch mostly on Tuesday and Wednesday, through to Thursday and Friday.
There are lots of instructions to make sure these are the most well cared for and nurtured little ducklings. There is no guarantee that all the eggs will hatch or all of the ducklings will survive, but they are having a very high level of care and support to give them the best chance. (You can read lots more about the ducklings welfare on the Incredible Eggs website)
We will share updates as the days go on. There will be chance for the children to gently handle the ducklings next week, once they are a bit bigger and stronger, we will also be able to set up a duckling pool for them to swim in too (supervised swimming lessons only!)
We would like to thank all of our families for your support at our recent fundraising events, the money raised has gone towards this exciting project for the children at nursery, along with some of our EYPP (Early years pupil premium) funding.
We hope your children are as egg-cited as us!
All of the children at nursery today have been to visit the duckling eggs. (They are safe in their incubator in the office upstairs). The children have learnt words such as ‘beak’ and ‘eggshell’ when talking about how the ducklings are going to hatch out of their eggs. We talked about the noise the ducklings will make as they use their beaks to tap their way out the eggs and the noise the eggshell will make as it begins to crack. We talked about where the ducklings will live when they have hatched and how we will continue to look after them. We counted that there are 7 eggs in the incubator, keeping warm. The children also learnt that ducklings will grow up to become ducks, and that chicks grow up to become chickens. The children will visit the eggs each day to spot the changes as they begin to hatch.
Our first egg has a crack 10:45am!
This crack is also called ‘pipping!’ Although it’s exciting to see – there is now a long wait for any more ‘action’ to take place! The hatchling is still getting ready to hatch inside and is very busy inside out of our view. Over the next 12-24 hours we will hear some peeping and see some rocking. Inside the egg the duckling is still absorbing the yellow yolk sac and it’s important this is fully absorbed before they hatch. The next stage is called ‘zipping’ and is when the duckling starts to make a crack the full way round the egg. It’s normal for the peeping to get loud at this time – this is a good sign! Zipping can take anywhere from 1 hour to another 12 hours! Hatching is hard work! We’ll keep you updated with all the eggs over the coming days.
Important Viewing Information (so you don’t worry!)
Most of the eggs are expected to hatch onWednesday/Thursday, some may hatch as late as Friday. We are not allowed to open the incubator until the first two eggs have hatched. This means we can move two ducklings to the brooding cage together and they wont be lonely. It also keeps the humidity levels high which are needed for the eggs to hatch.
We are not to help the ducklings out of their egg, even when it’s managed to break part of its shell. If it does not have the strength to hatch by itself, in all likelihood, it will not be strong enough to survive.
Once two ducklings have hatched, and they are dry and fluffy, we can move them to their brooding cage. It can take 3 – 4 hours for them to be ready after they first hatch. The first two ducklings will be moved together to the brooder, it’s ok to then move the other ducklings one at a time once they are dry and fluffy, at least 3 hours after hatching. Hatchlings are fine to stay in the incubator overnight and be moved to the brooder in the morning.
Our livestream video is up and running for you to watch the ducklings hatch from home (please read the information above so you understand all about the slow process and how the hatchlings will present when they first hatch.)
Click the link below to view! (NEW DUCK CAM NOW LIVE!)
THREE eggs have now ‘pipped’ which means they have made their first ‘star’ shaped crack in the outer shell and are getting ready to hatch. It will be 12-24 hours after this that the duckling start to ‘zip’ which means they make a crack the whole way round the egg so they can come out. Our first duckling may hatch later today as it ‘pipped’ yesterday morning!
We can hear lots of ‘chirping’ today which is a great sign the ducklings are getting ready to hatch. The children have sitting ever so quietly trying to hear the chirps! There is no sound on the webcam during the day but we will try to put it on when the nursery closes so you might be able to hear the ducklings in the evening.
The children have been busy reading their ‘Egg’ book that they bought from The Edge of The World Bookshop. They have been asking lots of fantastic questions!
We have DUCKLINGS! What a busy night! We were up through the night checking on the ducklings, around 11pm was very eggciting! The incubator live stream recording is saved on the youtube playlist so you can rewatch it and rewind throughout the night. There is a NEW webcam of the brooding cage where we have 3 happy ducklings finding their feet! There are two more ducklings who are hatched and resting in the incubator and two eggs that we will keep an eye on to see if they hatch. (One of these ducklings is still a little damp but they were needed a bit of room to dry off and are doing really well under their heat unit in the brooder cage, the other two ducklings will join in a few hours!)
The ducklings are very noisy, wobbly, cuddly, cute and we are all besotted with them! They are getting more and more fluffy by the minute! There is a new news post all about the ducklings now they have hatched! Have a look at the new post for even more updates 🙂
