chirpy, chirpy, cheep, cheep.

incubate your own eggs inside this especially designed computer mouse; abandoned wild birds, chicks, snakes, turtles whatever takes your fancy really (not your *own* eggs, silly).

birds eggs are often abandoned in the nest for various reasons e.g. the sudden demise of the mother bird or even tipped out of the nest altogether.

trying to hatch these eggs is virtually impossible without an incubator although some danish woman once reportedly did it in her cleavage.

if you have large hands and a larger type incubating mouse, it might be possible to hatch larger birds but I fear ostrichs are quite possibly out of the question.

its quite probable that a chick inside an egg is quite comforted by the noises of its mother as she broods on her nest and fusses with the nesting materials. our lucky incubating chick will become accustomed to the click, click, click of the mouse as we work and the hum of the fan in our pc etc. although some of our number might like to turn down their music to a gentle modulated level ( status quo banging out “down, down, deeper and down” – well, you get the picture).

an adult bird’s temperature is about 35°C which is just a tad lower than the average human but there will obviously be some heat loss as it is conducted through the mouse shell.

some birds eggs do well to be turned often during the day and so in the early stages, the egg could replace the ball of the mouse (please be gentle). it is recommended that turtle eggs are not for turning and so these should be placed immediately in the centre of the mouse rather than in the ball repository. (doesn’t *repository* sound oddly egg-related to the lay man? )

computer mouses closely resemble the traditional still-air incubators in that they are small and without fans for air circulation. an air exchange is attained by the rise and escape of warm, stale air and the entry of cooler fresh air near the base of the incubator/mouse.

remove all chicks as soon as fluffy and within 24 hours is the usual advice but here, I would suggest at the first cheep. enjoy!