DAY 6: Sunday, April 20, 2008

Temperature Range: 100
Turned the eggs: 2 times – 9:30 am, 10:00 pm
Water added today: No

This evening we candled the eggs. We don’t have anything fancy to do this, so we waited until nearly bed time and then I put a few eggs in my sweater pockets and we took a field trip into the bathroom with a flashlight. Now, the bathroom is all of 3’x4’ of floor space, maybe. I might be generous on that measurement. We were cramped – 5 of us in there. I knelt down and held each egg in one hand and shined the flashlight at the end of each egg with my other hand. I asked the kids what they saw. One of them said “tree branches.” I guess the veins and arteries do look like tree branches. I explained that they are really the veins and arteries carrying the blood to the developing chick. Then with each one after that, I asked them to tell me when they saw the “tree branches”. They all were exclaiming at the same time as soon as they came into view, but I think “B” was a bit ahead of each one in seeing them.

After we made it through each of the eggs I had brought with me, we went back to the incubator, pocket full of eggs, and gently placed each one back in it’s warm spot in the incubator.

Eggs candled: 1, 9, 16, 25, and 36
What we saw: Veins in each one, solid dark spot in each one