Page 29 - Animal Kin

in a plastic box filled with a special soil mix. The cooler had water in the bottom for humidity and the plastic box with the eggs was set on bricks above the water. I set a thermome- ter sensor inside the box with the eggs and closed the whole thing up with the thermometer on the outside. The directions said that after a few days all viable eggs would swell slightly and the others would shrivel a little and should be removed. When I opened the box a few days later that is exactly what I saw and so I took out the two odd-colored shriveled eggs. I closed the box and only peaked in a few more times over the weeks that we had to wait for them to hatch.
The gestation period was vague, 50-80 days, so I start- ed checking them regularly after the 50-day mark. The eggs had grown a bit and were plump and beautiful. On day 62, one of the eggs looked different. When I checked it later in the day it looked all shriveled and it took me a full minute to understand that the tiny baby was right beside it, covered
in soil! The others all hatched soon after. The babies were miniature replicas of their parents. I found that I could order newly hatched crickets from the pet store- by the 10,000- and so I set up a tank with crickets and another for the ba- bies.