Hatching Chicks: A Brief Overview from Our Library Experiences

Close-up of a yellow baby chick with a small piece of feed on its beak.

Hatching chicks is a special, fascinating experience! Anticipation and excitement build for approximately three weeks, and then… “cheep! cheep!” the baby chicks peck their way out! For the next two weeks, you watch their adorable antics as they figure out the world, interact with each other, double in size, and start getting feathers. The West Windsor Branch has been able to share this experience for four years now, once a year starting in 2023, and it’s something that patrons and staff look forward to each spring. For those who haven’t been able to observe each stage or for those who want to know more, read on for an overview of the process, some interesting facts about chickens, and a book list of kids’ non-fiction titles for more information, pictures, and activities.

The Process

Various companies and farms offer chick-raising experiences. The company we have used is Rent the Chicken. They deliver all the supplies and instructions needed for a 5-week hatching experience and then take the chicks back before they reach the size and age that would be difficult to handle in the library!

Smiling library staff member holding a carton of eggs beside a chick brooder and egg incubator.

Supplies needed to start are: an incubator (preferably one that turns the eggs automatically), a nearby electric outlet, warm water, and approximately 7 fertilized eggs (depending on the size of your incubator). The incubator acts like a mother hen. It keeps the eggs warm and moist, turning them every 45-minutes or so, to ensure that the chicks stay evenly warmed and don’t get stuck on one side of the shell! Your only responsibilities at this point are to make sure the incubator has an appropriate amount of warm water inside to maintain the correct humidity and to keep the incubator plugged in and its lid on.

Newly hatched chick drying off beside unhatched eggs inside a tabletop incubator.

After about 7 days, signs of life can be seen in the eggs by a process called candling. Think of this as a chick’s ultrasound! To candle the eggs, take them into a very dark area, and hold a flashlight against the pointier end of an egg (the top), with the light beam going toward the bottom of the egg. If the baby chick is developing properly, you can see large veins, the air sack, and the growing embryo. The eggs shouldn’t be out of the incubator’s warmth for long, so this needs to be a quick process. (We took them out one at a time this year, to be on the safe side.) You should also be sure to wash your hands before and after handling the eggs and add water to the incubator to replace the moisture lost by opening the top. It’s time to stop candling after around day 14. At this point, the chick has grown to pretty much fill the egg, making it hard to see inside!

Wet chick sitting upright among unhatched eggs in the incubator.

By day 19, the chicks start getting ready to hatch! Usually around day 21 the chicks start pecking little pips (cracks) in the eggshells. The chicks will continue to work at the cracks until they can push the egg open, and then they enter the world! A newly hatched chick is wet and tired, and it takes the next several hours in the incubator to dry off, fluff up, practice moving, and rest. Amazingly, all the eggs typically hatch within a day of each other, though some may take as many as three days to hatch after the first chick emerges. Unfortunately, it’s common for only 50-80% of the eggs in a clutch to hatch. Some chicks don’t develop properly, and some are too weak to successfully come out and survive. At the Library, we’ve had anywhere from 2 to all 7 eggs hatch and survive over the last few years. While sad, it’s a part of life that some don’t make it, and it’s something to be prepared for when committing to the hatching process.

Group of yellow, black, and brown chicks huddled together on bedding in a brooder.

After the chicks have hatched, they need to wait in the incubator for at least 24 hours after the first chick has emerged. This gives them a chance to dry out and fluff up. Once all the chicks who are going to hatch have hatched, they can go into a brooder cage (like a big guinea pig or hamster cage) to give them more space. The chicks still need to keep warm, so this cage should have a heat source that the chicks can rub their backs against. The heater that comes with our kit looks like a sloped table - lower at the back than the front. This to accommodate the chicks as they grow! When they’re little, they go all the way to the back of the heated area. As they grow, they stay in the taller area at the front (or hop up on top to see the world from a higher perch!). The chicks enjoy eating, drinking, and snuggling together. They eat a high-protein diet of bugs, greens, worms, and chick starter mash, with things like oats, hay, and corn blended. Amazingly, they know how to peck for food and drink water as soon as they hatch; no special feeding by Mama Hen required!

The West Windsor Branch does a naming contest during the three weeks of incubation, so by the time the chicks hatch, we have a lot of fun names to choose from! Last year, we did a random drawing and named the chicks Mr. Chick and Kelsey. (Coincidentally, we had a new staff member start the afternoon after those chicks left… and her name is Kelsey!) We haven’t picked names for the 2026 chicks as of the writing of this post, but we’ve had a lot of good ideas submitted!

It’s fun to watch them at this stage as they develop personalities and start establishing a pecking order. They’re also very talkative and cheep a LOT during this time! It’s hard to say goodbye, but, after two weeks of staying in the brooder cage, we send them back to their farm to continue growing into adulthood. It’s a very rewarding process to observe and be a part of!

Interesting & Fun Facts We’ve Learned About Chickens

A hen is born with all the eggs she will ever lay in her lifetime… but they are single cells, not fully-formed eggs as we think of them! When the hen is ready to lay an egg, the yolk and albumen (egg white) form around the egg cell. Even the eggshell is created right in the hen’s uterus!
A hen can start laying eggs as early as 6 months old! The chicken eggs we hatch are NOT the same as store-bought eggs. The ones we have are fertilized (i.e. have baby-chick potential), whereas store-bought ones are not. Also, the cold temperatures at which store-bought eggs are kept prohibit any potential embryos. If an egg is fertilized, you will see a small white spot in the yolk. This is what will grow into a chick. When a hen is ready to raise chicks, she builds a nest, then she lays the eggs one at a time, typically one per day. She doesn’t sit on them, though; she just lays them in the nest and checks on them each time she comes back to lay again. When she checks on them, she will turn them to keep the yolk (the yellow part of the egg) in place. The yolk is held in the center of the egg by strings of tissue, called chalazae (pronounced kuh-lay-zee), and, by turning the eggs, the hen prevents the chalazae from stretching and allowing the yolk to touch the sides of the egg! After the hen has laid 7-15 eggs (the typical size of a clutch), she finally sits on the eggs. The warmth of her body is what starts incubating the eggs, and this is what allows all the eggs to hatch at about the same time!
The chick’s heart is one of the first parts to form. There is also a small sac for the chick’s waste in the egg. Chicks get oxygen and nutrients inside the egg. Pores in the egg let in oxygen, and the yolk and albumen provide food and water. Approximately a day before hatching, the chicks pierce an air sac that’s in the egg, and they take their first breath before hatching. Chicks will turn inside their shells so that they face up as they hatch. After day 14, the hen doesn’t leave the nest to eat or drink. She clucks to the eggs, and they learn her voice before the hatch! Chicks have no teeth… except one that they use to hatch. This ‘egg tooth’ is used to poke a hole in the eggshell, and it dries and falls off within a couple of days. Without teeth, not only can a chick not bite you, but it needs to eat small pebbles and dirt to allow it to grind food.
The yolk provides enough food for the chick so that it can go a couple of days without eating once it’s hatched.
The shape of an egg is perfect: it distributes weight so that it won’t easily break when the hen sits on it. (An adult can stand on a carton of eggs without them breaking!) Also, if an egg rolls out of the nest, it will circle back to the nest instead of rolling away like a ball would.
Eggs and chickens come in a variety of colors. We see white and brown eggs in the store, but they can also be pale green, pale blue, pale pink, and speckled. Chickens are usually white, brown, black, or speckled, but there are over 100 breeds that each have their own colorations and patterns.
Unfortunately, you can’t tell whether the chicken is a boy or a girl until around week 5.
Although the chicks are adorable, chickens do not make good pets. They are smelly, noisy, and not generally tame.

Non-Fiction Books to Read for More Info

Chickens:Exploring Life Cycles by Ruth Daly.
The Egg Book: See How Baby Animals Hatch, Step-by-Step. DK.
Hatching Chicks in Room 6 by Caroline Arnold.
Where Do Chicks Come From? by Anne E. Sklansky.
Charlie’s Hatch Party by RayLee Holladay.
- (The two books listed above came as part of the chick hatching supplies. They are available at the West Windsor Branch to read in the library.)
Also check out the E 636.7 and the J 636.7 sections for more chicken books.