So, about 53 days ago I posted here to show off my monster clutch. While I was hoping for a dozen eggs, what I got was 7 huge eggs weighing in at 979 grams (thats a 140 gram per egg average). Anyway, they started hatching yesterday on day 52, and the last one left the egg today on day 53 (more about that later).
These babies average more than 87 grams a piece, with the largest being 90 grams and the "runt" being a measly 84 grams. We read on here every week how folks have hatched healthy babies at half that size or smaller. With respect to the mass of the eggs at laying, these babies weigh in at about 62% of the mass of the eggs. I'll post a couple of pics below, but I wanted to comment on the incubation period. These babies came about 3 to 4 days earlier than usual for me, even though I'm using my same ol' temperature. Incubation conditions were exactly the same as they always are here. I'm wondering if there is a correlation between eggs size and incubation period. Once all of my clutches for this year have hatched, I'll take look at the data. Thoughts on this?
Here are a couple of pics. Take a look at the paint job on the individual baby. These are het reduced pattern.
