Hatching Projects Are Cruel

To the decision makers in schools and parents of children in classrooms.

Hatching Projects for your children may seem ‘cute and educational’ yet in reality, the opposite is true. It is cruel to the mother hen, to the chicks who are left in a glass cage for the first weeks of their lives and to what happens to the chicks after the project is finished and to the parents who take them home thinking how cute it would be to have a hen or two in their backyard but don’t know what to do when one is a rooster and starts crowing.

A mother hen that wants babies cluck clucks to her unhatched chicks as she sits on them to keep them warm. In a Hatching Project, these fertilised eggs are taken away from mother hen and kept in small incubators/glass cages so children in a class can see them hatch. This is not nurturing a child’s compassion for animals.

Please think about what you are teaching your child if you allow them to participate in a Hatching Project.
  • Babies can and should be taken away from their mothers.
  • Babies can be left alone in a glass cage without a nurturing mum.
  • Children can pick them up whenever they like, without knowing how to properly hold and care for them and unintentionally hurt them.
  • They can left unsupervised on weekends when school is not open.
  • A sick chick may die from being mishandled or not getting the care it needs.
What happens when the Hatching Project has finished?
The teacher can return the chicks to the business or they can ask parents to take some chicks home. Both are bad options. No matter what teachers and schools are told, there are not enough hobby farms for hen and rooster chicks to be rehomed to. The hen chicks might be used to continue laying fertilised eggs that are taken away from her. The boy chicks, culled. This is not the life lesson your children should be a part of whether they are aware or not.
Teachers ask parents to take them home and of course the children are very excited about this. ‘No pressure!’ So home they go, without thought to what happens when some will be roosters, that crow and you can’t keep roosters where you live. So as a parent, you are now in a sad situation to separate the rooster from his bonded little flock. You need to get rid of the rooster, and you can’t find a home for him. This little boy is young and in need of his friends and protection as all domesticated animals need.
This is when it gets worse still & it’s heart wrenching.

Rescue organisations like Who Gives A Cluck receive messages every day about roosters needing a home or they’ve seen dumped roosters. The strain on our resources is frustrating because we know that if parents and schools made more thoughtful choices, these roosters would not have been born in the first place, so would not experience being taken away from his friends and a safe environment only to be euthanised or dumped and left to survive on his own. Our rescue organisations spend hours rescuing them and finding foster carers even when we have no more room to take in any more dumped roosters.

The Alternatives that support children’s respect for life and all animals.

  1. Who Gives A Cluck, with the support of Bede Carmody Animal Sanctuary Fund, are creating an online virtual ‘Life of a Chicken’ that all school children can use and we are also doing in person, ‘Hen Zen FunShops’ at schools or 4 to 8 years olds. To register your interest, contact us here:
    https://whogivesacluck.org/contact/
  2. Take your children on an outing to a sanctuary where they can visit animals that are cared for.
  3. Show the children the Life cycle of a chicken without using live eggs. Go to this link ‘Chicken Life Cycle’ from
    https://www.teaching.com.au/product/LER2733