Thanks, Sandy. I hope it will be fun raising them. The first one just hatched last evening and wow, are they ever super tiny! I really could barely see it. The other cats I raise look gigantic compared to these. lol I looked awhile ago and couldn't see it, so I guess it's on the leaves somewhere. I just hate to be fussing with that too much or I might accidentally squoosh it. I have the eggs in a small container and have them laying on top of some wild lupine leaves that I cut from my plants. I thought that way when they hatch out, it will be better that they're on a leaf than on the bottom on the paper towel. I have the florist tube laying on its side on the bottom of the container, so I hope that's alright. What I'm wondering right now is do these tiny cats roll leaves yet? I can't picture them having the strength/ability, so maybe they just crawl around on the leaves for awhile? Okay, since they overwinter as cats and I'll have them on our unheated, screened back porch, how long will I have to keep cuttings for them? When we get a frost, everything will be kaput, so I'm wondering if I should bring any in right before we get a frost (cut some off the plants, I mean). I won't be able to keep water in the tubes all winter because they'll freeze and crack. In nature, nobody is bringing them fresh cuttings, so I'd guess that they won't need any after we have a frost...unless because of them being on our porch they won't know that it's time for them to settle down for a long nap. I'd imagine that the leaves will all dry up and crumble and perhaps not even hold together enough to hold them inside (I'm guessing), so I hope that the cats will be okay through the winter. Can I assume that they won't wake up until their food in my garden will be available next year (not until sometime in May, I think or maybe late April. Sorry, but I didn't even bother to take a pic of that teeny tiny cat because I know the camera would just take a really blurry pic that close. Cathy

way back when i farmed for a living we saw an ad in the catalog that we ordered our baby chicks. we ordered a dozen straight run araucana chicks. and paid 50Cents each plus shipping. which we thought was expensive. But once they started laying pastel colored eggs in green and blue and pink and tan. we were real happy with them and we sold the extra fresh farm eggs. everybody wanted the easter eggs! I set up a incubater in the celler and hatched out lots of eggs and also traded eggs with a friend who also had the chickens too. to have a bigger gene pool of chicks. a few years later i was taking 12 dozen eggs to work each week and always had requests for more, i got a promotion at work and gave up farming to move to another town to work. in the ads in the sunday paper this week i saw an add selling baby auracana chicks for $3.00 each.

I have a small nest in my garden bed tall grass in my front yard that looks just like this with 6 ggs. I am in Louisville Ky. I was cutting the grass back when I saw it. I stopped and tried to move some of the remaining grass back around it. I'm concerned because it's in direct sunlight for most of the day. Will the bird come back to sit on it???

Northern Mockingbird...catbirds have blue eggs, no spots if I remember correctly. BN