What’s the point of this project?

Ms Hespelt: “We were looking at starting FFA, which is Future Farmers of America at Renton High School, and it’s through our environmental science class, and we’re hoping that we’ll take these chicks, we’ll raise them through the end of the school year, and then next year we can actually go to the Puyallup fair and present what they learned about raising chickens and hatching them from eggs and care and stuff like that, and participate in some of those events.”

Question: How long did they take to hatch?

Ms Hespelt: “It took 21 days, they started hatching on day 19, so they were in that little incubator over there, we got them as eggs. And we had 7 eggs and 4 of them ended up hatching, they were fertile, so it took about 2 days to hatch, about 18-25 hours, and then there they are! So they’re actually only about 1 day old.”

Question: You were talking about the FFA, is it a class or a club?

Ms Hespelt: “It would be a club, it’s through environmental science and agriculture and stuff like that, and so we’re just looking at trying it out as a district with Hazen, and so it was just seeing if we would have the experiences like this in certain classrooms, see how excited kids got about it. It was for like an FFA light trial demo to be like how much interest would there be if we actually worked with more plants and animals and living models. And it seems like its a success.”

Question: What kind of chickens did you get, and is there any reason why?

Answer: Buff Orpingtons because they’re good layers, and Ameraucanas because they lay green eggs