Robin egg?

[mlheran]

I know this isn't exactly "pet & livestock," and it's not exactly "other poulty" either, but I just had to share this beautiful little egg I found today!

It was floating in my dog's pool and as soon as I saw it I swooped it up, dried it off, and candled it. It's impossible to see in the photo, but there is a tinnnnny dark dot in the center of the free-floating yolk. Obviously I'm not going to do anything with it -other than admire it- but it was just too pretty to leave for the other birds to eat.

Does anyone know what kind it might be? I guessed robin because I've heard that they lay blue egss, but I really have no clue.

Needless to say, this has made me very exicted for my Ameraucana eggs -only five or six months to go!

 

[Orpingtonlover]

Hi my dad is a ornithologist which is the study of Birds and he told me thats most certainly a American Red Breasted Robin and if you have a a incubator put the egg in it at the same temp as your chicken eggs it will hatch! my dad is happy that you found it he said by the way you Described it that its already started to form the baby good luck!

 

[MTchick]

If you have an incubator, you can put it in there for the night to keep the little thing alive. In the morning, if you can see where the nest is (which should probably be directly above or adjacent to your pool) you can put the egg back.

I would highly recommend NOT trying to incubate that egg to hatching. For one thing, a robin baby is extremely unlikely to survive without a robin mama because they are naked, blind, and require feeding every 15 minutes for about two weeks. With regugitated earthworms. No fun. Also- it would be technically illegal... small detail...

So yeah, moral of the story is- Cool! If you are so inclined, you could keep it warm tonight and pop it back under the robin tomorrow, and maybe save a little birdie. Alternatively, you can keep it to look at and admire, which isn't a bad option because it may have already died in there anyway.

-MTchick

 

[Nifty-Chicken]

Quote:
Anybody willing to go to that length is a hero in my book!

 

[mlheran]

Well I don't have an incubator, and I have no inclination to try hatching this robin -I just think it would be tampering too much (and I'm not too keen on regurgitating worms either!

).

I didn't put much hope in it since I don't know how long it was in the water (the nights are still cold here), and there aren't any trees over the pool. It was probably stolen from the nest by another bird and dropped -I find a lot of eggs dropped in weird places (the Blue Jays love to drop walnuts all over too). I feel bad for the little thing, but I searched the nearest tree this afternoon and couldn't find any nests. And with my luck I'd put it back in the wrong nest!