I had every intention of cleaning out the hatching incubator tonight after dinner, but my kids had other plans. Apparently, when I was out doing barn chores today, #5 decided to play in the bathroom. None of the other kids in the house noticed he was in there. As dinner comes to a close and #2 heads to the bathroom to pee, he comes back out and drops the bombshell of the night... #5 has destroyed the bathroom. He made a concoction of lotion, soap, shampoo, body wash, hydrogen peroxide, and possibly toothpaste... Then he put it in the sink, in the toilet, in the shower, in the litter box, all over the cat tree, in the fish tank, over the *entire* floor, in the cat water and (full) food dish - which then overflowed sopping expanded kibbles all over the base of the cat tree, making a soupy mess over the entire thing. After almost two hours of mopping and sweeping and scooping and scraping and vacuuming and even blow-drying, we got most of it cleaned up. It's now past midnight as I write this. Tomorrow I will finish the bathroom. The toilet and sink are clean, the cat tree has been vacuumed and set down sideways on the floor to let the base dry, I got as much out of the fish tank as I could, one of the litter boxes has been scooped, and half of the floor has been mopped (the other half has been cleaned up and dried but not re-mopped). Everything (except the carpeted cat tree) is at least dry now.
I will have to clean out the incubator tomorrow morning so I can put the new egg in. The one egg that's set to hatch on Wednesday. Still scratching my head on why I only set one egg for that day. Anyway, tomorrow all of the eggs we've been collecting for the past week will go in to the incubator to hatch the week before Easter. Leap of faith here that I'll be able to sell them.
I heard back from the other breeder that has Celery today. She's still not had any success pairing Celery to her doe. Both are inexperienced and under a year old. She's trying swapping their cages for a bit to see if it helps. We're both really hoping for a litter from this pairing. Hers is a gorgeous solid blue and Celery is a broken something - we thought black at first but as he's been groomed out he's looking more like a broken blue. Either way, it'd be a shame to have to breed her gorgeous doe to Mister Cellophane instead (he's some kind of chocolate or sable or something). We're both crossing out fingers that her doe will life and my buck will do his job and make some pretty babies!
We got six more eggs from the chickens today. I'm not sure if any eggs from tomorrow's collection will be able to go into the incubator, as it's cold outside and it takes time for the eggs to warm up to room temperature when they come in.
In potentially awesome news, this evening when I fed the colony rabbits (because I'd forgotten them this afternoon), #4 was helping me and she took a peek in their preferred nesting area. Sure enough, there was fur. Closer inspection saw wiggling little babies. I did not disturb the nest or get close enough to count. This is the first confirmed litter in the colony since we swapped bucks last fall. Skittles is officially a proven breeder now! As for the babies, I hope that the colony rabbits protect them and that the barn cats stay out. I have a sneaking suspicion that Luna, our white barn cat, may have been sneaking in to the barn and snacking on baby bunnies, since we hadn't had any litters yet but we've seen fur pulling here and there for about a month now. I made sure we fed the cats extra tonight (we usually feed them in the morning) in hopes of keeping them away from the colony. Crossing fingers this litter survives, since we're not having the best of luck breeding our cages rabbits at this point. With a 3/23/19 birthday, if they make it, baby bunnies could be ready as soon as May 4th (Star Wars Day).