A Pharaoh’s Autobiography: A Quail's Journey through Life and Death

[JustMe]

*****  Adding Link to LIVE feed of Hatching.. http://www.ustream.tv/channel/justme-s-channel  *****

After reading a few sentences you may wonder if I forgot to take my medication.  There is a perfectly sane reason this isn’t a biography.  They are boring and no one reads them; everyone wants to hear it straight from the bird’s beak (pun intended).  Since I am neither born yet nor have any fingers, I will communicate telepathically with my keeper who will do the typing for me.  

As of right now I am a embryo sitting inside of an egg.  For the next 10 weeks you will learn my history, follow my development, my life, if I am to live out my life or will an unfortunate death be my destiny.  This will depend on you the readers.  

Life starts for me inside on of these eggs.  To ensure that at least one will hatch and this journal alive; my keeper has decided to start with 100 eggs.  So he has a 1 in 100 chance to hatch me.  Interestingly this is also my keepers odds with women.  Calling him my keeper is so inpersonal; from this point on I will refer to my keeper as J.  

[JustMe]

Egg Size

There I am right there.. I am currently next to a dooky brown colored medium chicken egg.  It takes about 5 of me to make equal one chicken egg.  If you look to the right, there is a quarter for comparison.  Ancient internet myth has it that eggs with pointy ends will be females and rounded ends will be males.  Look closely you can see the difference.

[JustMe]

Finally J has loaded me up and getting me ready for the next 17-18 days where I will grow from a single cell embryo to a lean mean pooping machine.  The tray that J has put me in will turn me from side to side every 2 hours.  That helps keep me from sticking to my egg wall. 

[JustMe]

J has put the lid on me and its getting hot in here.  99.5 to be exact and humidity must be around 40% for the first 14 days..  If he is .5 a degree lower, I will take an extra day to develop.  If he is .5 higher, I will come out earlier.  If he is off by more that that it could be dangerous for me, for my sake I hope he keeps it perfect. 

[JustMe]

What a first night that was.  Rocking back and forth like I was on a boat. My head and back bone are starting to take shape. Blood islands are forming and will link up in the next 24 hours to become my vascular system.  J has been coming in and out of the room every 30 mins to check up on temperatures/humidity.  I just want to tell him that I am fine, temps have been steady at 99.5 with 45% humidity.  

Let me tell you a little about myself.  My ancestors were originally from east asia, northern Japan.  We were unfortunely caught and breed for our meat and eggs.  In our own land we would sing all day into the night.  Our songs were mostly the same.. Coturnix.. coturnix.. coturnix.. but who cares, you people listen to trance music.. no difference.. Our mothers would hatch us out, we'd run free across the frozen tundra.  Now we are heated in a styrafoam box, but don't get me wrong, I am grateful for J giving me a chance at life instead of being a small deviled egg.  

[JustMe]

Good morning, I made it through another day sitting in this incubator.  Last night the humidity jumped to 55%.  Hopefully J will correct his soon.  The egg that I am in needs to evaporate enough so that I can pip in 15 -16 days.  It can't stay too high or i could drown when I pip.  Otherwise not much has been going on, just rocking back in forth.  I head and spinal cord has developed and attached to my blood islands.  My heart has formed and started beating already although not fully closed.  Hopefully J can build a powerful enough candler so he can get some pictures. 

[JustMe]

Day 3.. or is it day 4.. don't know.. but humidity is down to 38%, temperature still at 99.5.... Still sitting in the bator chillaxing.. I'll ask J to take some pictures in the morning of my possibly father..

[JustMe]

Finally got J to go and take a picture of my father..

Look at that.. That's gonna be me in another 7 weeks. 

[JustMe]

1 week gone by.. 10 more days to go.. Hopefully nothing bad happens. humidity has been up and down.  yesterday its was down to 28% and J added some water to the incubator which made it rise to 50%.  I havent noticed any foul rotten egg smell so I think my little brothers and sisters are moving along now too.  All my body parts are now formed.  I have a small beak and my feathers are starting to fill in.  Yay.. count down.. I've asked J to put a webcam in my bator so that he can see when I hatch if he is at work.. Well see. 

[JustMe]

J is a man of many talents.. 

[JustMe]

7 more days till I hatch.. yay.. J has been looking for a webcam, but unfortunately he is slow to order one.  He will have to go to a local electronics store and purchase one to be able to stream my birth online.  Knowing him, it will probably a cheapo one lol.. He has till midnight Saturday until the incubator goes into lockdown mode. What is lockdown?  That is when the incubator is closed, humidity raised to 60% and can't be opened until all eggs are hatched.  If it is opened there is the possibility that we might get shirnk wrapped in our eggs and won't be able to get out.  So its very important to not open during lockdown.  Well back to developing. 

[Mrs.Vang]

Wow!    This is interesting!  So, the incubator has a time set and locks down on its own?  Or do you do it?  Please do share a video clip of it.  I'd like to see how the eggs hatch.

[JustMe]

Wow!    This is interesting!  So, the incubator has a time set and locks down on its own?  Or do you do it?  Please do share a video clip of it.  I'd like to see how the eggs hatch.

The incubator is locked down manually.  On Sunday the live video should be able to be viewed on J ustream channel.  It is quite boring until at least Tuesday, or Wednesday night.  Once we get started it is like popcorn though.. So don't miss that.. 

[JustMe]

Turning was stopped and lockdown was set last night.  J finally started the webcam broadcast.  I know he get nervous as heck during this time, second guessing if he did anything wrong.  Yeah i see you forgot to move the thermostat so you can see it.. lol.. Anyways here is the link to the live broadcast..

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/justme-s-channel

it's pretty boring as of right now, nothing is happening.. but hopefully in the next 48 hours things will get popping. 

[JustMe]

My first sibling has came out..