Hatch The Chicken for Connecticut School Librarians

A four- or five-week live hatching program for Connecticut school libraries and classrooms. We deliver a tabletop incubator, seven fertile eggs, a candling light and a brooder kit, set it all up, and come back at the end and collect every bit of it — chicks included.

How it works

  • Twenty-one days in the incubator, then a week or two with live chicks — you choose four weeks or five when you book, so the program lands clear of your district’s breaks.
  • Every hatch falls Monday to Wednesday — never a weekend. You will know your exact hatch date before you commit.
  • There is nothing to monitor. The incubator turns the eggs itself. No temperature to hold, no humidity to manage. Warm water twice a week, and the lid stays shut after lockdown.
  • We take everything home, chicks included. They join the flock at our farm in Northford. No school in Connecticut is left working out what to do with seven chickens in June.
  • Honest numbers. Expect three to five chicks from seven eggs. Not every egg becomes a chick, and we will help you find the words for that before it happens.

Standards

Connecticut adopted the AASL National School Library Standards as state standards on 1 December 2021. This program supports AASL I.B.1, I.D.2 and V.A.2, and the science performance expectations NGSS 1-LS3-1 and 3-LS1-1. A one-page alignment sheet you can forward to your principal is in the Library Hatch Kit below.

The Library Hatch Kit — free

Yours whether or not you book with us.

The one-page sheet to hand your principal · the written handling protocol for your school nurse · the equipment and fire safety specification for your facilities office · AASL and NGSS alignment on one page · a parent letter in English and Spanish · our W-9 and certificate of insurance · a dated quote with a PO field

We’ll email you a confirmation link first — click it and the kit comes straight through. A few emails a year about spring dates. Leave any time.

Egg & life-cycle read-alouds, K–3

The list from the bookmark. ISBNs are being confirmed and will be added here shortly.

  • An Egg Is Quiet — Dianna Hutts Aston & Sylvia Long
  • Chickens Aren’t the Only Ones — Ruth Heller
  • Chicks & Chickens — Gail Gibbons
  • Egg — Kevin Henkes
  • First the Egg — Laura Vaccaro Seeger
  • Where Do Chicks Come From? — Amy E. Sklansky (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out, Stage 1)
  • Let’s Hatch Chicks! — Lisa Steele (Young Voyageur, K–3)
  • Interrupting Chicken — David Ezra Stein

Picking a date

Connecticut towns don’t share a calendar. February break, April break and even which holidays a district actually closes for all vary town to town. So instead of guessing, we publish dates across the whole spring and help you find the one that clears your break weeks — and if your program crosses a three-day weekend, we tell you before you book, not after.

Tell us your district and your testing window and we’ll find you a week that works.

Booking and questions: 844-310-8782 or info@farmerjoesgardens.com
Please mention CASL or ask for the Library Hatch Kit so we know where you found us.

900+ programs since 2022 · 276 schools · 93 Connecticut public libraries · zero reported illnesses since 2022

Full Hatch The Chicken details →

Hatch The Chicken is a program of Rent The Chicken · Farmer Joe’s Gardens LLC · 336 Forest Road, Northford, CT 06472