My daughter just did her science project on our chickens. She feed them spanish peanuts to see the effect on the eggs.It was very interesting and a great project.

You are lucky your daughter could do her project. Our school system banned projects with any type of animals. Tis a dar n shame.

I just went to a workshop on embryology at Cornell this week.

They showed us how to open a hole in the shell of a 3 day old embryo, and put a window in it, so you can watch the development of the chick.

The only problem with that is, that eventually, when the chick fills the egg up, you only see feathers up against the window. But it will hatch.

Or, you can crack open a 3 day old embryo, put it in a bowl lined with saran wrap, then cover it well with another layer of saran wrap, seal with a rubber band around the edges, and watch the embryo develop. The thing is, the egg won't hatch, and you never know how long it will live. Sometimes they live a day, sometimes they go until the 20th day. It depends. You have to keep it in an incubator of course.

So you have to be prepared that it will die. I was reading that some have had luck, instead of putting the embryo in saran wrap, they put it in half a cracked open egg, with saran wrap covering it so the embryo at least absorbs calcium from the shell, which it wouldn't get from saran wrap.

If you want the directions, email me and I will fax them to you.

M