Story By: Ana Marjanovic, Sub-Editor: Michael Leidig, Agency: Newsflash
A Chinese woman has developed a nice sideline with her neighbours by using a rice cooker to hatch eggs.
Incubators are usually expensive but this bizarre device was put together with just a few pieces of kit.
The woman – identified only as Ms Li in local media and who hails from the city of Yichang in the Chinese province of Hubei – adapted with rice cooker with a sealed bag of warm water, some padding and a thermometer.
After setting the cooker on the lowest setting she placed the eggs inside and left them to hatch.
In her online video of the technique, she says she has a 70 per cent success rate for hatched chicks, with 21 from 30 eggs.
Now she is getting requests from friends and neighbours to work her magic for them.
She said: “I hadn’t expected it to work but the eggs were surplus because the hens were not sitting on them, and I was really surprised at how successful it was.”