Science watch update

[24 Jun 2011]

Keep in touch with what is happening after the webcam moves on.

Chickens

When the chicks first hatched, I thought that they were amazing. I have never seen them hatch before so it was a nice experience watching it first hand. It was a joy to see so much life being enter the world in so little time. The egg cam was a great help to those who didn’t have the chance to be in the classroom at the right time; this is because the egg cam was placed at an angle to view the whole scene and played on the Sirius Academy website. I think the egg cam was very interesting because you could see the eggs up close, as well as the chicks that were T.V stars.

Carrie Harness & Becky Taylor, year 8

Cream Legbars as they were in March.

The chickens in the quad are approaching point-of-lay. If we are very lucky they may lay before we break up! The cockerel (Kilkenny) has taken charge of the group and leads the three hens around the quad. They are still under threat from the sparrowhawk, but we hope that they have found out where the cover is available under the bushes. They are being fed twice a day with chicken rearer pellets. This lets us get them in at the end of the day so they are protected. It also provides them with all the nutrition they need. They can supplement this from the grass – chickens eat a lot of grass!

Kilkenny is a Maran cockerel. These make good cockerels for a small flock, but it is the Maran hens which are highly prized, as they lay very dark brown eggs. When he is older he should look like this:

The three hens are Cream Legbars.

They lay blue/green eggs and are starting gain their mature feathers. When fully grown they should have these markings

Caterpillars

The caterpillars in G27 have formed chrysalides. They are (mostly) hanging from the top of their tubs transforming from the caterpillars into the painted lady butterflies. This should take a couple of weeks. The next job (for the Environmental Action Group) is to transfer the chrysalides from the tubs to the butterfly house. This is a collapsible net about the size of a dustbin. Once the butterflies have emerged, we will only have them for a few days before we will release them outside (not for the chickens!). Once the chrysalides have been transferred, We’ll move the webcam into the butterfly house so we can see them emerging live on the website.

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