EAST LANSING, Mich. — James Whaley brought agriculture to life during the 33rd Ag Expo at Michigan State University last week. For the third year, the 16-year-old 4-H and FFA member from Byron, Mich., brought his chick-hatching booth to the MSU College of Agriculture and Natural Resources (CANR) tent to educate visitors about raising chickens.

“I think it’s cool to watch chickens hatch. It’s fun to see how kids react to it,” Whaley said of his display at the state’s largest agricultural show.

During the Expo, Whaley set up an incubator that contained eggs ready to hatch. He moved the newly hatched chicks from the incubator to the feeding pen and taught visitors what it takes to care for poultry. Expo participants could pick up the baby chicks for a “hands-on” lesson.

Whaley explained that to be ready for expo, the process started about three weeks ago when fertilized eggs were placed in an incubator with a turner, which automatically turned them three times per day. After 18-19 days, they are moved into an incubator without a turner.

He had an incubator set up at Expo that he put eggs into each morning. He said most of them would hatch that day or the next day.

Whaley got his start in the chicken business three years ago when his family purchased a group of chicks to raise for meat and eggs. He said he enjoyed taking care of the hens and soon bought more in groups of 25.

With a growing number of eggs each day, he said soon there were too many for the family to consume. So, he “started to peddle them down the road to the neighbor.” It wasn’t long before he decided “it would be easier if I put a sign up at our house and people would come to me to buy the eggs.”

That’s when his business – Jimmy’s Farm Fresh Eggs – took off. “I have 85 chickens and I sell every one of my eggs – sometimes before they are laid,” he said.

Whaley adds to his flock at different times of the year to maintain steady egg production. He collects an average of 4-5 dozen brown eggs per day.

Chores consist of feeding and watering the chickens each morning and letting them out of their hen house. Whaley keeps his chickens in groups of roughly 25.

“They are different ages, so I don’t want them to get mixed up,” he said.

At night, Whaley closes them in their hen house “so raccoons and other predators don’t get them.” In the evening, Whaley washes the eggs he collected that day to prepare them for sale.

His business is swift enough that there’s no need for refrigerated storage. “I usually collect them, wash them and give them to the buyer,” he said.

A junior at Byron High School, Whaley isn’t sure what his future holds; however, he said he plans to attend Michigan State University to study “something to do with the outdoors or with poultry” and expects he’ll continue to keep chickens as an adult.

For now, he plans to continue saving his egg money for college.