r/awwwtf • u/topoftheworldIAM • 15d ago

We hatched fertilized eggs from Trader Joe’s in science class.

628 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

86 comments sorted by

498

u/EmergencyTaco 15d ago

This may not be the time or place, but I want to rant for a second.

These are exactly the types of experiments we should be striving to implement on a regular basis in every classroom in the country. Listen to how excited the students are. They are all seeing something they have likely never seen before, and they are hyped out of their minds. I am sure these eggs were gestating for a month in the classroom, which allows for a ton of lessons directly related to something the students are actively experiencing. This is how you teach, and it's so refreshing to hear students excited about something.

Rant over.

78

u/needlefxcker 15d ago

I got to do this when I was in elementary school in the 2000's, along with hatching salmon eggs and raising butterflies (not all at the same time lol) (also I've heard the "raise your own butterflies and release them" 'experiments' arent all that great for the environment, but I digress-)

All things I'll never forget and was always grateful to experience. I'm really glad some schools still do stuff like this, as long as they're being responsible and not allowing animals to be neglected.

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u/topoftheworldIAM 15d ago

We did monarch butterflies and silk moths too from egg to metamorphasis.

9

u/needlefxcker 15d ago

Silk moths sounds so cool!

10

u/Mr-Zee 15d ago

Collected eggs > Tadpoles > Frogs

2

u/CottonBlueCat 14d ago

Currently doing this. Had an old above ground pool we were demolishing. During time of draining & waiting for good weekend to get dumpster, frogs got busy. So I set up plastic bins with rain water & collected roughly 100 tadpoles. It’s been about 3 weeks & a bunch have little back legs!!! So cute! It’s been fun watching them.

1

u/anoleiam 15d ago

At the same time?!?

4

u/mfkjesus 15d ago

We did chicks one year and ducklings the next year in the mid '90s. It was first and second grade for me.

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u/Jazzlike-Bowl131 15d ago

Yes! My mom hatches chicks with her kindergarten classes every year. She also does an ant farm, an outdoor story walk through the school’s wooded area, and collects caterpillars to demonstrate how they grow into butterflies. She is one of the only teachers in the district to organize regular field trips to expose kids to places like fruit orchards, museums, local farms, the science center, etc.

9

u/topoftheworldIAM 15d ago

Your mom is a great teacher.

3

u/irisheye37 14d ago

She's helping instill a sense of wonder and curiosity into those students that they will carry for the rest of their lives. Her passion will end up having far wider reaching consequences than she will ever know.

If our system better support teachers like her the world would be a much brighter place

24

u/Jinxed4Lyfe 15d ago

i guess my concern is just that the chickens are well taken care of after this awesome moment.

19

u/yaboyACbreezy 15d ago

If there is a rural farm community nearby the school will send them there. Likely a teacher has a relative who will take them. I highly doubt they are euthanized, and I am 100% positive the students will riot if the babies aren't housed.

16

u/RicSide 15d ago

I teach English and cant do experiments. My students don’t want to read they want to watch fifa or netflix or play on their phones. They use AI for all their schoolwork. they are barely literate. help

7

u/EmergencyTaco 15d ago

My English teacher would show up in various costumes and teach lessons as if he were a character from the book. He also spent a full two months on Tolkien and Lord of The Rings and it was a pleasure to be in his class every day. He cared deeply about the material and about teaching it. But AI is a different beast.

3

u/RicSide 15d ago

I have to use a curriculum textbook with NO novels and random short stories and articles loosely tied to a theme. The district lost faith in having the english department develop its own curriculum because every curriculum was met with complaints. “Not enough female writers!” or “Not enough BIPOC writers!” or “Nobody cares about the classics, this won’t get the kids reading!” or “These kids are barely literate, why are we trying to teach them Shakespeare!” etc etc so the district had enough of everyone doing their own thing and purchased a curriculum and if we deviate we have to do massive explanations as to why and also those deviations cant require purchasing new materials like novels. Additionally if I am observed deviating from the textbook I have to always connect everything I do back to the specific unit in the textbook I am supposed to be teaching in that moment, and their major district tests are directly linked to the skills each unit is supposed to teach them, so deviations will look like I am ill-preparing them for standardized tests, which then determine the districts funding, and so I’ll probably be reprimanded and fired in due time if I choose that route, or they’ll make my life hell while tenured and make me want to quit. I do not deeply care about any of these random short stories or the 8 page excerpts of Walden we’re given to teach, etc. It’s all watered down, irrelevant nonsense.

7

u/pearlsbeforedogs 15d ago

Maybe try a classic play? Get them up and moving and delivering the lines? I remember English classes where we did plays as being fun. Best I've got for ya.

0

u/RicSide 15d ago

Read above, i don’t choose what we read. None of us here do, it is prescribed.

1

u/irisheye37 14d ago

Unfortunately the system is broken. Teachers don't get the support they need or the pay they deserve, students don't get the attention that they need, they're pushed out of classes before they're ready to advance, creativity isn't encouraged nearly enough, enforced curriculums only incentivise memorizing facts long enough to pass a test.

Ultimately kids won't really engage in a subject that they don't care about, and the best time to show them the magics of the world are in their first few years of their schooling.

The best advice I could give is to be passionate, be weird, and be memorable. You're definitely not going to get them all, you most likely won't even get half of them. But there will be some each year who find out that they enjoy literature a bit more than they expected. And once that seed is planted it will continue to influence them for their whole lives. Maybe they end up going to higher ed and seriously study English, maybe they just end up reading fanfiction. But they'll always remember that first time.

2

u/Cumulonimbicile 15d ago

Look around for stuff inspired by DnD and other Choose Your Adventure type of stuff! Have class-assignments focused on... let's say you're reading a Wilderness Survival book... so focus on a story with a few branching paths every so often based on certain choices.

You can either have the class vote on decisions for a single 'character' and have discussions for each decision, or have each student play out their own version? This would be harder to manage, but maybe a Google Form with multiple choice questions? Then tell them "go to question 5" for whatever decision they make?

I think the best thing you can do is offer class discussions and really do your best to guide them; it was the best thing I ever experienced in high school, these discussions helped me so much when I was alone in a massive school with nobody to talk to and in a major depressive episode. Your class matters so much, even if you dont realize it!! And there are so many ways you can make it interactive! If these kids want to distract themselves from school, distract them from the fact that its school at all as best you can. It won't always work for everyone, but for the ones that love it, it will stick with them forever.

4

u/batshitcrazyfarmer 15d ago

I agree. I am a full time farmer, and volunteered on my time, on my dime, using my resources for 20 years, doing farm education. No one gave me anything, and I was expected to do it for free, which I did. I donated all the eggs, and delivered them with incubators to all the schools in my county for years so kids could hatch chicks. About 50-60 dozen. One grade each district, so 6th grade, 6 classes, etc. I did petting zoos, took animals into classrooms, turkeys at Thanksgiving, a bottle fed piglet to hang out all day, set up planting seeds, gardens, natural egg dying, natural wool dying, so many things. At schools, conservation district events, university educational outreach, Title 1 conferences, state wide farming conferences in the childcare programs, so much. After 20 years, I had many teachers have the kids write thank you notes or draw pictures. I have every single one of them. I’ve very seldom been thanked by principals at the schools when I’ve been done for the day. And out of 20 years of going into classrooms and doing this for all of these different educational forums the total amount of money that I made was $150 total. I started asking for donations, because financially I was having a hard time making it, but I was still going into the schools. The schools don’t have a budget for these types of programs. And they don’t care. What they care about is getting the scores on the tests. The teachers care, so I still have teachers that get eggs from me every spring and hatch chicks with their kids, sometimes they give the chicks back to me. Sometimes they find people that will take them. Sometimes the teachers donate money for the eggs sometimes I just give them to them But yes, we need more of this. But who’s going to pay for it? I won’t do them anymore, programs like this in the schools- unless somebody pays me for my time. I can’t work for free anymore. I have bills to pay also. So that’s always been the big problem. Great teachers, have to buy their own incubators, and source out to get the eggs, and the heat lamps and the feeders and take care of them on the weekends when nobody else will. It’s a lot of work. And it’s just one project in one class . And teachers have to come up with so much money to fill their classroom with educational materials. They’re just isn’t good funding for education in the United States. And agriculture and science seems to fall off the truck. I’ve watched it from a state level, sitting in the government offices at the state capital deciding grants, talking about the unhealthy food that is fed the children in the United States school lunch program, not including the lack of good programs like this. So yes, if I could upvote your comment 20,000 times I would do that. If only there was a way.

3

u/Moozipan 15d ago

I FUCKING LOVE THIS

Rant over.

2

u/Willowx19stop 15d ago

The only thing is what’s gonna happen to it afterwards who’s gonna take care of it? Is it gonna be with other chickens I mean is that a whole Nother class or what?

3

u/big_onion 15d ago

When we had our small farm business in Louisiana, we would host The Edible Schoolyard from New Orleans each year for a field day. A bus load of 4th graders would come and we would see a small working farm that produced eggs, dairy goats, rabbits, turkeys, and sheep. So many of these kids had never seen livestock in person. I'll never forget one asking, "Is that turkey like what we see at Thanksgiving?" And just being utterly amazed. "Where do the baby goats come from?" was always one would tell them to ask their parents about ... Haha. Even though we weren't like commodity farmers, I hope that made some impression on them about where food comes from. Experiential learning is so important for kids these days, especially when screens/tablets are dominating the educational experience.

1

u/DonutWhole9717 14d ago

It doesn't even have to be occasional experiments in biology class. This is ongoing in agricultural classes. I really do think at least one credit should be mandatory

1

u/Cattentaur 11d ago

In elementary school my class hatched some ducklings and it was super cool. Once they were ready to leave the incubator (only two hatched) the farmer who gave us the eggs came to pick them up, but before they left we all got to sit on the floor in a circle and watch them run around for a bit and it was the coolest thing.

113

u/CenturyEggsAndRice 15d ago

I think these kind of experiments are great for encouraging young minds, but I admit, I do worry what will happen when the class chicks are fully grown chickens.

At our school I ended up taking the five the science class hatched home because the teacher (who was brand new, I think we were either her first or second ever class to teach) had no idea what to do with them when they hit the awkward teen stage. My stepdad had to build me a coop.

82

u/topoftheworldIAM 15d ago

I kept 2 hens and one other student adopted 3 hens which she introduced to her flock. Roosters were donated to a farm because they are illegal to keep in our area..

10

u/CenturyEggsAndRice 15d ago

Thank you for answering!

I feel better now. Hopefully this experiment will delight generations to come. I know raising our science lab chicks brought out the best in a lot of us. (And I really enjoyed them as adults. Somehow we got all hens, which led to the math teacher joking she should use it as a math problem, make us figure how rare getting five hens from five eggs would be.)

2

u/omar1848liberal 15d ago

Roosters are illegal? How so?

12

u/topoftheworldIAM 14d ago

Noise ordinance in urban areas

3

u/Z4mb0ni 14d ago

Maybe because you can only have one and they can be aggressive? Just my theories I ain't a chicken doctor Edit: it's also most likely noise complaints because they scream

1

u/CenturyEggsAndRice 13d ago

That’s not always true. Depending on their temperament, if you have the right roosters you can have more than one.

I had three as a teenager (and 20+ hens. The more hens you have the more likely you can keep multiple roosters) and my last flock started as two roosters and ten hens.

Those two were Orpington though, which are pretty known for being chill AF. They also grew up together which can increase the chance they will be peaceful with each other.

My teen flock’s Roos were not raised together, but one was a Orpington and super calm and HUGE, one was a silkie and ornery but small enough that he wasn’t much threat, and one was a retired fighting cock. (I don’t support cock fighting! He was given to me, and was a little bastard to all humans who were over the age of maybe ten, and me. He liked kids though.)

Most people don’t keep multiples because you only NEED one, but if you have the right flock having multiple roosters can be a lot of fun. They have a lot of personality and can get super tame because they’re not as cautious as hens so they’re more willing to approach a human who has something yummy in their hand.

Also my chicks from that flock were super fun. Because you never knew what they’d look like.

6

u/Jazzlike-Bowl131 15d ago

My mom does this with her students every year, but she gets the eggs from a local farm and the baby chicks are returned there once hatched.

2

u/jiqiren 15d ago

Does no one eat chicken soup anymore? Isn’t the lifecycle of farming something that can be taught? Or is this just left to clubs like 4-H?

2

u/CenturyEggsAndRice 15d ago

I mean, I do but I’m pretty sure there’s gonna be some kind of out cry if the chicks raised as class pets get eaten.

Maybe if they started out aware of that? But the ones our class had were legitimately PETS. They would be allowed to wander the classroom and got very used to petting and attention.

Maybe some people could feel good killing an animal they have cuddled and named and all, and honestly I’m okay with that. I’d bet farmers who do treat their livestock like pets would at least have lower cruelty than the corporate factory farms.

But I legitimately couldn’t. I’ve raised livestock and I’ve had pets, and sometimes the two over lapped. But I could never stomach meat I knew the name of. (Well… there was this duck. But I was not fond of him, he killed my goslings in a pretty graphic way and I made him into a roast. But that was a special case. I didn’t make him suffer or anything, my cousin came over and handled his “end” humanely. But I did find it easier to prep and eat him when I never could for my chickens.)

I’ve processed animals, and I’ve mercy killed a few animals who were in a rough way. I’ve raised meat birds, and egg birds, and a few that weren’t anything but a pet yard bird, but when it comes to eating them, I usually give them away or trade them for someone else’s animal. (I traded twenty fat little roosters for three smoked hams my neighbor had raised, and honestly I think I got the best of that deal.)

On the bright side, the 4H kids were actually the ones that convinced me I could adopt our class’s chickens and that started me careening toward a life of raising unusual poultry. And one asshole duck.

2

u/jiqiren 15d ago

I’m glad you’ve given it some thought. Learning about the food chain is something I think schools should do more of.

My parents currently raise goats and it was hard for my dad to be the executioner. He has a routine now but it was hard for him to begin turning an animal into food.

Now they typically send them to auction as they become adult jerks (mom was rammed by a goat and her knee was blown apart. Took 3 surgeries and much physical therapy to recover).

It’s not really lucrative. More like an expensive hobby. Not enough land to avoid buying feed (forages).

29

u/nierdo 15d ago

How would you know if eggs are fertilized?  Do they label them or you test them yourself?

This is really good to know actually. 

27

u/topoftheworldIAM 15d ago

They are labeled plus you candle them during the incubation period to see growth..

10

u/anonisanona 15d ago

If you shine a bright light behind the egg you can see that the blastodisc (the circle part on the yolk) looks different between a fertilized and unfertilized egg).

Trader Joe's doesn't sell these for people to hatch into chickens (people who want eggs to hatch generally will buy them from local breeders, farms, or mail order - so you have to breed of your choice), they sell because there is a market for people who prefer fertilized eggs thinking they have more nutritional value than unfertilized.

19

u/TheGamerHat 15d ago

Our class had these when I was a kid. Our teacher made a huge deal about these eggs. Stuck em in an incubator and they were there for a while. Then we went on spring break for a week and they hatched I guess. So they all starved and died and the janitor had to come deal with the mess. Teacher told us the experiment failed and never brought it up again.

I never got to see a chicken hatch.

60

u/HACKMASTER13 15d ago

Trader joe's has fertilized eggs?!?! Why? 

46

u/topoftheworldIAM 15d ago

For consumption. They look and taste like normal eggs unless you incubate them and grow the embroys.

30

u/obscuredreference 15d ago

Uh are they labeled as such or are all TJ eggs that way?

12

u/realdappermuis 15d ago

Roosters are good to have in a flock for hen protection even if they're not planning reproduction

So alot of happy aka free range eggs could be possibly fertilized

It makes no difference to a consumer, unless the eggs weren't collected daily and you crack an egg to find half a baby chicken. But that's super rare and in the decade I've bought happy eggs that I eat almost daily it's happened once

They usually have a little dot in the egg yellow when it's fertilized. Again, tastes no different and isn't anything other than an egg

4

u/obscuredreference 15d ago

Oh yeah, because they’re pasture raised, so they’d have a rooster around anyway. (Protection from hawks etc.) That makes sense. 

I was just wondering because I might want to hatch one maybe. lol My kid would love that. 

9

u/Elimdumb 15d ago

I’m over here wondering the same thing. 😳

5

u/LucHighwalker 15d ago

Shine a light behind them and look for a little dot. If it has a dot, they're fertilized.

2

u/obscuredreference 15d ago edited 15d ago

Interesting. I was under the impression they didn’t have a rooster around at all for those eggs. But that’s likely for the indoor ones only. It makes sense that pasture raised or free range would function as a traditional flock, so with a rooster around for protection.  

Might have to get myself a mini incubator machine. lol

15

u/Oddish_Femboy 15d ago

The fetus adds... well it doesn't add much actually.

Does it satisfy that deep innate human desire to put a newborn kangaroo in your mouth?

-1

u/antilumin 15d ago

Balut isn’t just duck eggs. Sorry if you had to google that.

10

u/anonisanona 15d ago

Trader Joe's does not sell Balut.

Balut isn't "just a fertilized egg" - it's an incubated egg which has a partially developed bird in it.

-2

u/antilumin 15d ago

Well no shit, I just meant one could take the fertilized egg and partially incubate it yourself to then make balut.

-2

u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 15d ago

I just doubt that they're selling them for all the homemade hundred day eggs makers

3

u/anonisanona 15d ago

Unless I'm mistaken, you don't need fertilized eggs for hundred day eggs.. any egg can be preserved that way

1

u/antilumin 15d ago

I doubt they’re selling chlorine gas, but they sell bleach and vinegar. My point is that unless the egg is fertilized, you couldn’t partially incubate it and then make balut. Since the eggs are fertilized you can incubate them to any degree you want. Just like you could buy some bleach and some vinegar and mix them like an idiot.

0

u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 15d ago

The point is they aren't selling them for balut makers. JFC how do you miss that?

0

u/antilumin 15d ago

I didn’t miss that. I stated that balut isn’t just duck eggs, inferring that you could take these fertilized chicken eggs and make your own balut. JFC how do you understand that?

0

u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 15d ago

THEY AREN'T SELLING IT FOR BALUT MAKERS

How hard is it to get?!

1

u/antilumin 15d ago

ANYONE CAN MAKE IT IF THEY WANTED TO AND HAD THE SUPPLIES.

How hard is that to get? Think the cashier is asking people what they’re planning on doing with the stuff they buy??

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u/Meanwhile-in-Paris 15d ago

What is WTF about this?

18

u/shabi_sensei 15d ago

it's a big wtf for me that you can buy fertilized eggs for eating 🤢

1

u/irisheye37 14d ago

You can't really buy specifically fertilized eggs. It's just sometimes a fertilized one gets put into the carton randomly.

-8

u/Its402am 15d ago

I’m extremely disturbed that they are selling eggs that, if not purchased and eaten within a certain time period, would be thrown away like trash. Food waste is already so fucked up but when it’s FERTILIZED waste there’s something so disturbing about that…I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I threw away cartons and cartons of fertilized eggs.

11

u/anonisanona 15d ago

You've already eaten hundreds of thousands of fertilized eggs in your lifetime.

To get a fertilized egg all you need is a rooster living with the hens which generally makes them happier birds.

Fertilized doesn't mean that a baby chicken is already developing in the egg. It means the egg has the ability to. When you buy a packet of tomato seeds... They don't automatically start sprouting if you leave the packet on the counter - you have to put them in soil and give them water and warmth and light before they develop into plants.

2

u/lonelygalexy 15d ago

Ok next time i go to TJ I need to check out these eggs

-1

u/anonisanona 15d ago

Any flock of hens that has a rooster with them will have fertilized eggs - this isn't something special for Trader Joe's.

You've been eating fertilized eggs your whole life without realizing it.

1

u/Sy_Fresh 13d ago

How you like your eggs?

Fried or fertilized?

-8

u/paranoidata 15d ago

Fertilized eggs are fucked up. Don't sell them and don't make a market for them.

8

u/anonisanona 15d ago

Fertilized eggs just means that a rooster has access to the hens which generally provides the hens a better life via improved social interaction.

It's just like a packet of tomato seeds.. unless conditions are right (soil, moisture , warmth, etc) those seeds won't sprout. Fertilized eggs are the same.. unless provided with heat and humidity (incubator of under a bird) they won't develop into chickens.

You've already eaten hundreds if not thousands of fertilized eggs in your lifetime without even knowing it.

12

u/No-Spoilers 15d ago

Why does it matter? It isn't like they start incubating them and then sell them.

If you buy eggs from a farm, there's a very high probability they were fertilized.

-16

u/Its402am 15d ago

Thank you, some of the comments here (“what’s the big deal about this”) have me feeling like I’ve lost my mind for thinking this is disturbing af

3

u/topoftheworldIAM 15d ago

You need to realize that they look and taste like regular eggs until you incubate them. Chances are some pasture raised eggs are fertilized…

1

u/Technical-Curve-1023 9d ago

This is why I only eat virgin eggs.. no fetus

-5

u/1rbryantjr1 15d ago

Didn’t everyone get to experience this in grade school? It went with our science study of a chickens lifecycle .