Sad Quail lady is Sad

Well…

We tried right?

Last night was candling night and we trepidatiously opened the incubator after having meticulously kept watch over the temperatures with our little Govee…

-0- Viability.

We discovered hairline cracks when candling in a dark room that we’d not seen before.  Some glowed in the dark with an eerie neon green… altogether it looked like a miniature version of a John Carpenter movie’s scary creature’s egg clutch that just needed the right plucky heroine to say “Not today you evil monste!”

I should have expected that they wouldn’t have made it. The other 22 Coturnix eggs that had arrived in that shipment arrived visibly broken, some splattered despite foam protecting them.  It was a split order from an awesome private breeder in Texas, who would recommend again in a heartbeat.  Our little Cot eggs were on the bottom, and not as well insulated as the eggs that made it that my friend had ordered.  Ya win some, ya lose some, right?  They shipped just before a bad storm system that brought freezing temps to places that don’t get cold, and they took a detour to Indianapolis and up to Champaign IL before coming to St Louis and back across the river to us.

This morning the breeder is sending replacements, having already sent replacements directly to my friend.  They will be here by Saturday and of course, I’ll be following their tracking number like it was Santa’s Sleigh by Norad each Dec 24/25…

It’s funny – I’d gotten used to looking at the end of my desk at the incubator and knowing there were baby birds growing in there.  It seems so weird this morning.
By this weekend, they’ll be here and we’ll be back to a hatching pattern like before.  Just a few days delayed in our planned cycle – these things happen.

Annie is a semi-retired homebirth midwife,  the director and head doula trainer for the MattieMarie Traditional Birth Studies program, and a farmer’s granddaughter. It all ties into her mad plan to be as self-sufficient as she can while returning to her roots.