The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
CHICKS DRAW ‘AWWS’
Hundreds flock to chick hatchery
“It’s a big job, but breeding and raising chickens is getting more and more popular. We encourage people to come and see how it happens.” — Fair director/board member Georgianne Adams
Attendees are piling into the 162nd Lake County Fair this week to enjoy and experience all the amenities and attractions typically offered, including fair staples such as concession food, rides, horse demos, derbies, games, music and ... chick embryo development?
It’s not as unheard of as you think. Just ask eight-year fair director/board member Georgianne Adams about the crowds she’s seen come by the chicken hatchery.
“With so many people, it’s been hard for them to get close enough to see (the chicks),” said the Painesville resident. “We try to make it accessible, but the numbers have been big. We’ve had parents hold their kids up to be able to get a look.
“We get all kinds of questions from kids and adults alike. And today, Seniors Day, it’s been nice too, since we get many people visiting who grew up on farms or whose parents grew up on
farms. It takes them back, the connection to animals and raising them.
“This has been educational for me, too, and my granddaughter, Makenna. I didn’t grow up raising chickens. I had no knowledge of this. Some of the biggest chicken farms in the state have millions of chickens, and Ohio is one of the biggest chicken-producing states.”
With an incubator donated by the Lake County Farm Bureau, and heating, ventilation and air conditioning controls donated by the Walton Hills-based Smith & Oby Co., the fair’s chicken hatchery began with 36 eggs, incubating them in rotation since July 3. A typical hatch, Adams said, takes 21 days.
“When they are in the incubator, they are shifted every two hours, 45 degrees, to simulate what the mother would do. We have to be set the right way. There’s an air pocket in the fatter side of the egg, it’s how their breathing develops. If set the wrong way, there is no (proper) development. It’s 99.5 Fahrenheit in the incubator and 98 in the hatchery.”
Adams said Joe Slansky (fair director/board member) built the displays and Colleen Babcock, a Lake County resident who works with chickens, candles the eggs, which illuminates the insides.
“If an egg is not good, we dispose of it. We put in (eggs) each day until July 8, so a routine is set. They soon start hatching every day. It takes a couple hours to assess, to shift them up. I mark them with colored markers to indicate the date of each chick’s birth. They then go into the brooder, joining the other chicks.
“Though they can start eating and drinking as food is available to them, the chicks can live three days after they hatch without food or water,” she said. “They live off of their yolk sac that’s attached to their stomach. Males have even wing feathers and females’ (wing feathers) are staggered, short and long.
“We’ve had a few chicks hatch today. They are getting their sea legs. They encourage each other to hatch by moving around and peeping — they can hear them peeping inside the shell. It’s a process.”
Lake County Fair Chairman Robert Dawson said the mission of the fair is to promote agriculture, the state’s No. 1 industry, which is why the hatchery is featured.
“We feel this type of atmosphere continues to make a big impact, and it also develops Ohio’s No. 1 asset, the youth. The 4-H clubs do a wonderful job.”
Once mature, the chickens will go back to the farm that donated the eggs. Some chicks are bred to lay eggs while some are bred for “meat.” About threequarters of at the eggs at the hatchery develop to become chicks.
Adams said the Lake County Fair is the only county fair in the area, maybe Ohio, with a hatchery as an attraction.
“Chickens are good for the environment, they eat bugs, and we can hatch any kind of egg going from ducks to turkeys,” she said. “You could do this all year long. People ask where they can get 20 eggs at a time. The interest is there, it exists, as well as a natural curiosity.
“A lot of times, too, people want to touch the chicks or hold them, but it can be too much stimulation for the babies.”
To prevent the further spreading of an “illness” to domestic birds carried by migrating birds immune to it, no hatchery appeared at the fair two years ago. Now, the hatchery has appeared twice and continues to attract many a fairgoer.
“This is amazing, fascinating,” Adams said, as people lined up to catch a look at the brooder display. “We’ve started to get a lot of people asking how to go about raising chickens at their own homes. The sheltering against predators — possums, raccoons, weasels, skunks, coyotes — it’s harder than you think.
“It’s a big job, but breeding and raising chickens is getting more and more popular. We encourage people to come and see how it happens.”