On 12th March 2015, our 3.5 years old girl found an egg on our porch early in the morning. Shell looks a bit cracked. Teaching moment at this point? Not to simply touched things until they let mummy know. I went over to see what she found and it does look like an egg. Grabbed a tissue paper from my car and transferred the egg into a plastic container.
The next day, it was our 6 years old turn to find another egg. It was smaller this time and again, same teaching moment applied by them. Not to simply touched things until they let mummy know. The eggs were placed in a small plastic container, with some old rags and cloths to keep it warm.
I still had no idea what egg it is (suspected bird's egg but no idea which type). Don't think it is lizard's egg (as it is too big to be lizard's egg, I know as I kept some lizards' eggs 1 decade ago hahaha...), and I don't think it is snake's egg (texture of shell is very hard and thick and solid to be snake's egg). Tried to shine a light behind and over and in a dark room and still can't see anything inside. I had no idea if it will ever hatch.
Things got pretty dull since then, no movement nothing. One day, I did soaked the cloths and rags as I thought being in Malaysia, it is a hot hot hot country all year round and I don't want the eggs to be cooked so I thought probably soaking the cloths and rags might help? The next thing I know, the eggs' shells turned color! From white to dark brown and at one point it looks like it is growing some mold or something! To be honest, at this point I really think I killed whatever in the eggs!
Until 2 weeks after the day we found the eggs, I spotted a crackline in the bigger egg. At this point, hope has returned and I dared to take pictures and posted them on my page. Yay, I didn't kill the eggs LOL
The eggs were really really small, about 1 inch long and the other one is even smaller. Even though there were cracklines appearing, I still did not touched them or cracked them open for fear that the very action might killed what's inside. Nature's way right? So I thought of just leaving it to progress on its own.
In the meantime, I was freaking out as to be honest, if a baby bird hatches out of the eggs, I really really really have NO IDEA what to do with it. One part of me was slapping myself for taking the eggs back and keeping it while the other part was scolding myself for thinking cruel thoughts of abandoning and not rescuing the eggs. I told myself, no matter what, just keep it and wait it out. After all I have over 100K fans on my page, surely some will know what to do and can advise the next course of actions right?
I waited for a day as I read process from pip to zip takes around a day.
"pip" is an almost discernible crack in the egg.
"zip" is when the chick pecks away the shell in a circle around the egg. The zip starts at the pip. Chicks will usually pip and rest for up to 24 hours before they start to work on the zip.
The next day, I took my handphone, turned on the flashlight and tried my best to shine at the cracklines trying to see whether I can glimpse any movements inside the shell. In the end, I took a tweezer and slowly peeled open the shell.
I am so so so so so very very very relieved that the eggs we found almost 3 weeks ago turned out to be this!!!!!
FYI, initially I thought it was a seed, I'm just thankful it is not a bird's eggs or some bugs' eggs! In the meantime, I let out a huge sigh of relief that it is not any animal / bugs eggs hahahah....
Until some fans suggested it might be dung beetle's eggs! One helpful fan sent me some pictures of dung beetle eggs and how it looked like after hatching and all. Yikes, it kinda looks like the shells we have!!!
Then another round of waiting (and gathering up courage on my part) and I decided to use the same tweezer and cracked open everything. To my huge relief, yes, yes, confirmed it is a shell! Phewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.... LOL
Throughout this whole episode, I'm so very very grateful that the 'eggs' doesn't turn out to be bird's eggs, or bugs' eggs. Though I am sort of rooting for dino eggs (imagine the glamour, the fame, the $$$$ that comes with it!) overall, I am just grateful that I did not spend 3 weeks caring for a dung beetle egg LOL
I am also very thankful to my fans for following through the progress of these little guys with me! So now that we can close this chapter, I'm just very relieved with the whole learning experience hahahahaha...
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