Learn About Chicks

How a Chick Hatches
A mother chicken is called a hen. The baby chick's life cycle starts when its mother hen lays an egg. This egg has a big yellow yolk that contains all the food the chick needs while it grows inside the egg. The yolk floats in the egg white, which protects it and contains water for the chick. For about 21 days the hen sits on her eggs and covers them with her feathers to keep them warm. Several times a day she turns the eggs with her beak. She does this to keep the yolk from sinking down and crushing the chick against the shell.

When it is time for the chick to hatch, it pecks holes in the shell with a bump on its beak called an egg tooth. A few days after the chick has hatched, the egg tooth falls off because the chick doesn't need it any more. The chick in the picture still has its egg tooth. The chick has to take lots of breaks to rest, and when it finally gets out of the shell it doesn't get up and move right away €”it's too tired! Its feathers are wet and stringy, but they soon dry and become fluffy.

Baby chicks grow up fast. Young girls are called pullets and young boys are called cockerels. Pretty soon they will be grown-up hens and roosters and start having their own babies!

Laying Eggs
All birds lay eggs, but they don't all do it in just the same way:

• Most birds build nests out of twigs and grass or mud. These keep the eggs and chicks protected from other animals who might want to eat them. Many birds build their nests in trees, but some build them on the ground.
• Emperor penguins live in snow and ice and don't have anything to build their nests with. They only lay one egg, and to keep it warm they balance it on top of their feet under their feathers for two whole months!
• Some cuckoo birds don't build their own nest or take care of their own chicks. They lay their eggs in the nest of another bird and let that bird take care of them.
• Swiftlets in Asia build their nests on the ceilings of caves. They build them out of their own spit! People in Asia sometimes cook these nests to make bird's nest soup.

Eggs come in lots of different colors and sizes. A hummingbird egg is the size of a jelly bean. A robin egg is blue and about the size of a quarter. Ostrich eggs are the largest; they are bigger than a grapefruit!

• A baby duck is called a duckling.
• A baby goose is called a gosling (say GOZ-ling)
• A baby eagle is called a fledgling or an eaglet.
• A baby swan is called a cygnet (say SIG-net) or a flapper.
• A baby pigeon is called a squab (say SKWAHB).

Groups of hatchlings are sometimes called a brood or a clutch. Groups of grown-up birds can have different names, too. Usually they are a flock, but a group of geese is called a gaggle and a group of ducks is called a brace.

Printable Worksheet

Print out this coloring sheet to help kids match the baby birds with their parents!

Science Words

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