Animal Science Curriculum Kit: Chicken Life Cycle

This curriculum kit details everything you need to hatch, raise, and house chickens from egg to coop, paired with a 27-page standards-aligned life science curriculum covering Kindergarten through 12th grade. Includes 12 fertilized hatching eggs as a gift with purchase.

What's Included:

The 36-Egg Incubator with Automatic Egg Turner and LED Candler maintains precise temperature and humidity for the full 21-day incubation period. The automatic turner rotates eggs continuously to prevent the embryo from adhering to the shell membrane, and the built-in LED candler lets students see the developing chick inside the egg without removing it from the incubator. The Large Metal Chicken Coop and Run provides secure, weather-protected outdoor housing once chickens are fully feathered at 6-8 weeks. The 3-Compartment Nesting Box installs inside the coop and gives hens a dark, private space to lay eggs when they reach laying age. The Automatic Chicken Feeder and Semi-Automatic Water Dispenser keep food and clean water available throughout the day with minimal refilling.

This kit also includes 12 fertilized hatching eggs as a gift with purchase so that every student can experience the full hatching process, just like kids do in elementary school classrooms across the country. We recommend sourcing fertile eggs locally whenever possible for the best hatch rates. Local farms, feed stores, poultry breeders, and 4-H clubs are all great sources. If local eggs are not available in your area, we will ship 12 fertilized eggs with your order so no student misses out on this experience.

The Chicken Life Cycle Curriculum Guide covers four grade bands (K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12), each with learning objectives, detailed activities, and alignment to NGSS (life cycles, structure and function, heredity, ecosystems, human impact on Earth systems), CCSS Math (measurement, data collection, graphing, percentages, financial literacy), CCSS ELA (observation writing, lab reports, research papers, argumentative essays), CTE Agricultural Science and Animal Science pathways, and CASEL SEL competencies (responsibility, empathy, decision-making).

The guide includes a full 21-day incubation timeline showing exactly what is developing inside the egg each day and what students should look for when candling. Ten printable worksheets cover daily incubation data logging, candling observation sheets, embryo development drawing pages, life cycle sequencing cards, a chick care schedule, a genetics and traits tracker, a flock management planner, a cost-of-raising calculator with break-even analysis, and an agricultural research report planner.

Additional sections cover realistic hatch rate expectations (so students are prepared that not every egg will hatch), a week-by-week post-hatch care guide from brooder to coop, a common issues troubleshooting table, and comprehensive safety and biosecurity guidelines including handwashing protocols, heat lamp fire prevention, and Salmonella awareness.

This is a complete, living science curriculum. Students don't just read about the life cycle of a chicken. They live it, from the moment the eggs go into the incubator to the morning they collect the first egg from the nesting box.

Designed for homeschool families, science classrooms, agricultural education programs, and 4-H clubs. Curriculum guide delivered digitally as a PDF after purchase. Please check your local zoning regulations for poultry keeping before purchasing and have a long-term care plan in place before beginning incubation.

Additional Supplies Needed (sold separately):

A brooder box or container and a heat source (heat lamp or brooder plate) are required for the first 6 weeks after hatching, as chicks cannot regulate their own body temperature. You will also need chick starter feed, a small chick-sized waterer and feeder (the adult-sized feeder and waterer in the kit are too large for newly hatched chicks), and pine shavings or paper towels for bedding. Optional but recommended supplies include a backup thermometer/hygrometer, a kitchen scale for egg weight tracking, magnifying glasses for observation, and science journals for daily data recording. A complete supply list with descriptions and approximate costs is included in the curriculum guide.