We put ten eggs in an incubator and people bet on which would hatch first!
It was called Eggycam and took place between the 18th July and 8th August 2008. Farmer Duncan from the Amazing Egg Company provided us with ten of his finest eggs, which we carefully placed in a special incubator.
The incubator was kept at a humid and balmy 37 degrees Celsius, and had a platform that rotated the eggs (an odd number of times a day) mimicking what a mother hen would normally do. We then put a webcam focused on the incubator and people could watch it 24 hours a day!
The world’s press picked up the story one week in to eggycam, the story featured across the globe from Ireland to Italy to India. Thousands of people flocked here to watch the little chickens hatch out of their eggs.
Project sponsors, Paddy Power, the best bookie in the world, created lots of markets people could bet on. Of the ten eggs put in the incubator, only four hatched, in order, they were 9, 1, 2 and 6.
The chickens returned to Duncan’s farm (you can see a video of his farm on the video’s page) and they’ve been tagged so we can see which ones they are when we go down to visit (and race them.)