Science Fair Project

[SparksNV]

My 6th grade daughter needs to do her science fair project. We are hoping to find something to do with our chickens and/or eggs. We have 6 hens and no rooster. All 6 hens are laying - we get 5 brown and 1 muddy/green eggs. She has to do a hypothesis and a conclusion along with all of the other stuff in between. We have approximately 4 weeks to do this.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[Lindsy]

Hi
We are also looking for science fair ideas so I am curious if any ideas come your way. We have done the following projects in the past:

1. How many eggs will the hens lay each day? The hypothesis was one a day...we tracked and then looked at the results.

2. the second one was does music influence egg production? We tracked egg production for a week, then put an ipod in the coop at night with it looping music, and tracked production. We even went one step further with what type of music would have a greater effect. Very fun!

I am trying to figure out something with the rooster...ie how many times does he crow? why does he crow, etc. but having a hard time figuring out how to track. Any ideas???

thanks

 

[equine623]

Well there is the experiment where you soak an egg in vinegar and it dissolves the shell leaving the membrane - you can take it a step forward and see what other fluids would have an effect on eggs. Maybe coke, plain water, selzer, bleach, windex....just different chemical compositions and see how the eggs react. Hypothesize what might happen to the egg, how long it will take, something along those lines.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Get a rooster or fertile eggs and incubate them, charting development.
Get a rooster and incubate the eggs marking them daily to determine how long after he arrived it takes to get fertile eggs.
Get a rooster and compare fertility between each of the hens, and also not the non-sexual interest he shows in each hen individually. See if there is a correlation.
Get a rooster and predict the colour of offspring from the rooster and each hen.

Group your hens into groups of 2 or three birds, then get different brands of feed or products (such as a flock ration vs a layer ration vs a gamebird ration vs a starter ration vs ...) and give a different diet to each group. Chart egg production, general health, condition, molting, activity levels of each bird. Average the birds within a group and compare the different feeds.

 

[linben]

You could do one where you predict foods the hens prefer and measure the amount eaten of say organic vs nonorganic....cabbage vs spinach.....mealworms vs earthworms?

You could no some tests with the manure. Fresh manure vs seasoned and sprout a quick growing seed. Will the fresh kill it? Buy two small plants and try the same thing.
Grow faster with no manure or manure?

Good luck! I kind of miss those Science fair days.

 

[Mattemma]

We used the hens last year for dd's project.For 2 months we recorded the temp each day(high and low) and how many eggs we collected from the 3 hens.We wanted to see if lower temps resulted in less eggs.The hens were in a rather dark metal shed all winter so that was a constant.

 

[WriterofWords]

You could compare weight and consistency between the colors of eggs, cooking time, does it differ? Also you could do a taste comparison by cooking each color of egg the same way, blindfolding your tasters and give them a bite of each and see if any are stronger or different. Be sure and rinse the mouth between each taste. You could buy some store bought eggs and do a color and consistency and taste comparison between them. Photographs and documents!!! My 6th graders did some of these last year and it was popular with the judges. Another one compared chicken, turkey and duck eggs.

 

[BEAKMAN42]

sounds like a tough project

jeez i don't know.

 

[SparksNV]

She's made her decision!

She is going to do the experiment to see what different solutions will do to an egg. Thank you Equine623! We will let you know how her project goes!

Olivia says thank you!

 

[equine623]

Very cool, good luck!!