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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Chick hatching project

67 replies

StarDolphins · 22/05/2023 10:12

My DD will be moving to a Junior School in Sept with all her friends. It’s a great school & I really liked it when I visited.

I was told yesterday that they do incubation & chick hatching & one egg went missing so they put a post up about the missing egg & it was found by a parent in a child’s bag at home. Obviously this chick will now die.

Regardless of the above which is awful, I’m really against this as I know a lot of the chicks are killed anyway.

I want her to go to this school, she wants to go to this school.

Aibu to email/speak to the HT before she’s even started? & what on earth would I say, if anything at all?

OP posts:
kikisparks · 22/05/2023 11:23

Kanaloa · 22/05/2023 11:10

I think you’re right we can’t expect the school to change curriculum. I guess my view is that my daughter, until she’s old enough to choose for herself, isn’t going to participate in animal exploitation as far as possible and practicable.

She eats them! Just please don’t say this to the school when you ask for her to be excluded from this project because you’ll sound daft saying she isn’t going to participate in animal exploitation then merrily sign her up for chicken nuggets for school dinners.

I’m not the OP. I’m talking about if it happened to me. I’m vegan and my daughter is being raised vegan.

VegetablesFightingToReclaimTheAubergieneEmoji · 22/05/2023 11:24

We did this when I was at school (infants year 2). I still remember it, I spent every lunch and break with the chicks, I cried when they left the school. They went to a park with a small farm. I used to visit them there.
i recently came across my project work from it.

handled well it can be so beneficial

FuckTheLemonsandBail · 22/05/2023 11:25

The chick hatching stuff is just beyond awful. But I think you'll find unless you send her to specifically vegan/vegetarian ran school (do they even exist?) there will always be awful things happening to animals throughout her time there. There will be times they catch bugs to study for example or visit farms to pet animals who are due to be slaughtered, they will serve cow's milk from abused and exploitations animals, and so forth.

The approach I take is to allow my kid to engage in that stuff and just talk about it later/beforehand so he can form his own opinions on it and understand the bigger picture. The other kids enjoying the cute chicks might not realise that actually once they're done at school they're likely to be shipped off to be killed, or that there's a mummy hen somewhere missing her babies (talking in child language here).

Unfortunately we live in a society build and riddled through with the exploitation and abuse of nonhuman animals, it's unavoidable. Better to use these opportunities to learn and teach so that future generations have more compassion and understanding.

Lougle · 22/05/2023 11:25

DD3's preschool did egg hatching. We took four of the hens home and they lived happily in our garden for years. The last one died at 8 years old.

Original poster
StarDolphins · 22/05/2023 11:28

FuckTheLemonsandBail · 22/05/2023 11:25

The chick hatching stuff is just beyond awful. But I think you'll find unless you send her to specifically vegan/vegetarian ran school (do they even exist?) there will always be awful things happening to animals throughout her time there. There will be times they catch bugs to study for example or visit farms to pet animals who are due to be slaughtered, they will serve cow's milk from abused and exploitations animals, and so forth.

The approach I take is to allow my kid to engage in that stuff and just talk about it later/beforehand so he can form his own opinions on it and understand the bigger picture. The other kids enjoying the cute chicks might not realise that actually once they're done at school they're likely to be shipped off to be killed, or that there's a mummy hen somewhere missing her babies (talking in child language here).

Unfortunately we live in a society build and riddled through with the exploitation and abuse of nonhuman animals, it's unavoidable. Better to use these opportunities to learn and teach so that future generations have more compassion and understanding.

Thank you & I agree, I will do just this.

OP posts:
Mutabiliss · 22/05/2023 11:41

LostMySocks · 22/05/2023 11:17

My children's school does this every few years with either chickens or ducks. The chicks then move into the school chicken or duck area. There is a detailed policy about the school animals and how they should be looked after. They only get eggs when they have space for new adult birds.
The children are fascinated and when they are hatching there is live stream to all classroom whiteboards...
The eggs produced by the adult birds are sent home from time to time.

Yes, our nursery does this too. They have lots of land and the chicks that hatched two years ago are happily clucking around their garden. We occasionally get eggs sent home.

One of them sadly died and that was a good lesson for the kids too.

littleripper · 22/05/2023 11:44

I'm a farmer. 4 years ago I found over 200 dead chicks abandoned - fly tipped. The council and NSPCC were uninterested in prosecuting. Horrific.

Mygazpachoistoocold · 22/05/2023 11:49

'I know the kids & parents at this school & many of them wouldn’t be like you & your son! Anything in the playground currently gets either stamped on or the poor bee last week, got whacked with a stick so I just can’t see them nurturing a chick!'

How can it be such a great school that you really want your child to go to if the children are behaving like this? That's not normal behaviour. You might get a few children like this, but there will also be those who see an insect and are totally indifferent and ignore it or those who find something like a caterpillar and set about protecting it and building a home for it.
If the children really are as you say they are, I'd be looking for a new school and not because of a chicken hatching project.

TeaKitten · 22/05/2023 12:19

kikisparks · 22/05/2023 11:10

That does say “We do need to be realistic that whilst the boys live a happy life roaming free, they may eventually be destined for the table. “

Show quote history

They aren’t killed straight away though, they have a better life than most chickens destined for the table.

kikisparks · 22/05/2023 12:24

TeaKitten · 22/05/2023 12:19

They aren’t killed straight away though, they have a better life than most chickens destined for the table.

Show quote history

I guess I wouldn’t say an animal is rehomed properly if what that means is he’ll live somewhere for a short while then will be killed (nobody is going to wait for a bird to be old and tough before killing them “for the table”).

Original poster
StarDolphins · 22/05/2023 12:30

Mygazpachoistoocold · 22/05/2023 11:49

'I know the kids & parents at this school & many of them wouldn’t be like you & your son! Anything in the playground currently gets either stamped on or the poor bee last week, got whacked with a stick so I just can’t see them nurturing a chick!'

How can it be such a great school that you really want your child to go to if the children are behaving like this? That's not normal behaviour. You might get a few children like this, but there will also be those who see an insect and are totally indifferent and ignore it or those who find something like a caterpillar and set about protecting it and building a home for it.
If the children really are as you say they are, I'd be looking for a new school and not because of a chicken hatching project.

This is actually a good school despite some of the kids that will be attending.

Maybe I’m just hearing about the ones killing bugs/bees etc as she knows I don’t agree with it.

OP posts:
CaptainMyCaptain · 22/05/2023 14:57

DisneyMillie · 22/05/2023 10:31

My dd’s class hatched chicks - it was a bit depressing - half of the them didn’t hatch and the ones that did (at least) some died. Not the cute project I think the teacher intended.

It os known in advance that not all the chick's will hatch - that is nature. The companies advise against children 'adopting' individual eggs.

CaptainMyCaptain · 22/05/2023 15:04

The caretaker at my school cared for the chicks and took them away to join his own hens. He brought one back in the summer once fully grown. We kept it in the Reception garden and she laid an egg. The children were delighted.

I eat both meat and eggs so don't have an issue with them being used if they are well cared for.

feralunderclass · 22/05/2023 15:13

Do you know for a fact that it's a company the school are using? A friend of mine has chickens and an incubator thing and sends it into the dc school. The children get a lot out of it, the chick is hatched, stays under a heat lamp thing etc then goes into the chicken pen in the school Yard.

jane1956 · 22/05/2023 15:35

mainly males that get killed, Day old chicks are sold for hawk food. Hens are normally allowed to grow as lots of people want to have eggs etc

LadyMacbethWasMisunderstood · 22/05/2023 15:50

I share goor sentiments.

But you really should not, as I think you have now acknowledged, email a school in this way when your DD is not yet even a student there. You have no locus at all as yet to get involved with the curriculum of this school.

LadyMacbethWasMisunderstood · 22/05/2023 15:51

your sentiments. Not Goor!

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