Hatching into Young Chicks

A couple of days before the chick hatches, you can here cheeps coming out of the egg. The hen waits, excited to see her new baby.

The day comes for the chick to start hatching. It’s a very hard job for the chick. It first has to peck a line down the center of the egg. Then, the chick has to peck through that line even harder and then actually get out of the egg. It can take up to 14 hours for this process.

The chick comes out wet. After a couple of hours, the fluffy, yellow coat will dry.

Once the chick is out of its egg, it waits for its siblings. All the chicks take a really long nap when they are all together. They don’t get too hungry because they still have some food left in them from when they were in the egg.

When the chicks finally wake up, they start exploring and getting some food.

Growing Up Chicken

Only a couple of weeks after the chicks are hatched and they are starting to grow their new feathers. For a while, it’s hard to distinguish which chicks are male and which are female. But after sometime, the comb and wattle will grow bigger on the males and the hen will stay smaller.

Young hens are called pullets. Pullets are mostly for egg-laying. They will start to lay eggs at five months but can’t start laying fertile eggs until a year old. Chickens lay most of their eggs their first year. Then a little less their second year. And so on.

If a chicken wasn’t killed for meat and was treated okay, the chicken could live up to 12 years. Think about how many eggs that would be in all.