An Australian Addition

November to February tends to be a dead time of year. Not only is the weather wet and miserable and the daylight short, but farm animals tend to be at a stage when they don't do very much, and there is little in the way of laying and hatching eggs, and life revolves around maintaining and feeding small breeding groups who are waiting for spring so they can start breeding, and managing pens and paddocks so they don't get too muddy and worn.

So, I've decided to try a new species from Australia that lays in the dead of winter (presumably because in Australia it is the height of summer). It's probably not the sort of egg one who has never hatched anything before should start with. It comes from the second largest bird in the world, so is presumably the second largest egg, and takes nearly two months to incubate. It's an emu.

So here are my emu eggs!

The white egg-shaped thing behind one of the boxes is a temperature probe the size of a typical goose egg, to give some idea of scale.

So in February we are looking forward to hopefully having some emu chicks.