Everyone, including the chickens, are on the move

It’s been a busy few weeks in my household, and I’ll end this post with a few thoughts on where this blog is headed.  Before I get to that though, I thought that this week’s photo challenge, on the move, was the perfect time to share a few chicken photos.  Those of you who read my last post know that I am photographing a life cycle unit that is being taught in a 2nd grade classroom.

These photos show a bit of what the set-up looks like:

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Over the weekend the eggs were checked one last time and then went on lockdown.  That means that the incubator will not be opened for several days while the chickens are hatching. One of the things that happens while preparing for lockdown is that we can look at the inside of the egg using a process called candling, basically to check on the health of the egg.  Here is a healthy egg:

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This one is blank, meaning no chicken in here:

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The candling photos were taken on Saturday, just before lockdown, by Monday the first three chickens had hatched.  This photo is of an egg that is getting ready to hatch, there is a small break in the shell, so soon there should be a chicken:

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The shell that is completely discarded belongs to the yellow colored chicken in this photo:

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The darker colored chicken is a bantam chicken.  The children named that chicken Trouble because it was messing around a bit with his incubator mates.

The photos I chose for this post are all unedited, as for the purpose of this post, I was just telling a story and not focused as much on the art of the actual photo.  When I get to the editing process, I will be doing some cropping and sharpening.  The photos taken through the incubator window are a bit tricky due to reflections.

As I alluded to in the title of the post, the chickens are not the only ones on the move. I have not been posting as frequently in the past few weeks because I started a new job and finished a school semester at the same time. So, this is my acknowledgement that I am “behind” on my blog.  This means that I may have a comment of yours to approve or perhaps you have visited here lately and I have not returned the visit.  As I am writing this, I can see that I have 777 visits to make. Thats a lot for me, but having a cup of tea and visiting blogs is actually my favorite way to start the day. I am hoping to get caught back up in the next week or so.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I have been taking a Photoshop class this past year.  I am happy to say that I turned in my final project and took an exam yesterday. My next class is on Adobe Illustrator, so I am not certain how much of that class will turn up on this blog.  I am grateful to all of you who have offered me support and encouragement over this past year.  I’m very much looking forward to getting caught up and then continuing with this blog over the summer.

Questions or comments about the chickens or about this blog in general? feel free to leave them below!

Cheers!

 

Travel Theme: Close Up: It’s Time for Chickens

It’s a great time of year.  It’s chicken time:

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These eggs are part of a life cycle unit that a friend of mine who is second grade teacher teaches this time of year.  It is getting close to the end of the year, so it is harder to keep the kid’s attention as the weather get nicer.  This unit however, is fascinating, and a highlight of the second grade school year.

So, this is one of my first photos of this year.  The next step will be for these eggs to go into incubators.  As you can tell, there will be a variety of chickens hatching this year.  This is, in part, to show the kids the diversity that can exist among a species.  The chickens that hatch will eventually go to local farms.

You may wonder why I chose this for this week’s travel theme, close up. It’s my opinion that education should make you wonder about the world around you when you are young so that when you are old enough you can go out exploring on your own.  Projects like this one help bring that larger world close-up in a tangible way.  In a less direct connection to the travel theme perhaps,  I think it is good for the kids to see a part of how their food chain works close up. Often, I think, food just appears in front of them without any real discussion of how it got there. If there is to be a lovely natural world for them to explore as adults, I think it is important for them to be informed of where their food is coming from.

I’m pretty “egg”cited about this project, so there will be more posts as the unit progresses.  Feel free to drop by again to check for updates, your comments are welcome below.

Cheers!

Looking through the Incubator Window

For the last few weeks I have been taking pictures of chickens as they developed.  Today’s first picture was taken while the eggs were on lock down.  That means that they are in this incubator until they hatch.  It is nice and warm in there:

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These eggs were put in the incubator on a Saturday and by Monday they had started to hatch.  Here is one just out of it’s egg for a few minutes:

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In this photo you can see that they don’t all hatch at once:

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It takes a few days for all the eggs to hatch, and not all of them do.  Being born is a tough process for a chicken, if for whatever reason something goes wrong the chicken will not make it.  This particular group of chickens did well overall.  I will be updating you as they grow, and they do grow fast!

As the photographer, the biggest challenge in getting these pictures is the glare of the window.  I just had to move around and get the best angle I could.

This post was written as a response to the challenge, Thursday Lingering Look Through Windows.  Check it out, and feel free to participate.

Cheers!