‘Why?’Romy followed Jed and Stone inside.
‘Think of this place as a nursery for newborn babies at a hospital.’Stone put his finger across his lips.‘Shh.’
That explained why it was so quiet.But what kind of nursery had their babies living in sweltering temperatures like this?
‘Go on, Jed, this is your backyard, mate.’
‘Um, yeah, like Stone said, we keep the noise to a minimum.’Jed shrugged.
‘I get it,’ she stage-whispered.
Again, Jed gave her a shy smile before using the swipe card to open another doorway where the lights were dim.‘We keep the hatchery at 32 degrees with the humidity at eighty per cent to mimic the crocodile’s natural nesting conditions.Plus, we found the warmer it is, the quicker they grow.’Jed looked at the place with pride as he led them down the dimly lit corridor.
Inside, it smelled of animals, but not like your typical zoo either.This place had a distinct earthy aroma, like peat moss mixed with river water, reminding her of an aquarium.
As they walked down the main corridor, large glass windows showed off rooms set on either side, where indirect red lights reflected off the shallow pools.
‘The red lights keep the eggs warm,’ said Jed, ‘and don’t freak out the hatchlings.They’re hypersensitive to anything too bright when they first hatch.’
Romy rubbed her fingertips together, missing her camera that would record this tour, or her phone at least to take notes.‘How long do they take to hatch?’
‘The average is eighty days.’Jed plucked two trays off a nearby rack.‘We keep the eggs on these trays, set in a soft substrate, so they don’t have to dig too far.We still cover ’em though, to mimic the wild.You see, croc mums bury eggs in the nest, and when the hatchlings chirp, she’ll dig them out.But in here,’ Jed said, nodding at the hatchery, ‘they might not have a mum, but we give them just enough cover to feel safe, but not enough to get stuck.’
‘Do you use the soil that Stone’s carrying?’
‘It depends on the soil’s quality and how much we have of it.’
‘Not much, just enough,’ mumbled Stone, carrying the cooler.
‘Mostly, we use sand and other materials to help mimic the crocodile nest.I’ll show you.’Jed used his swipe card to unlock an empty room, then flicked on the red lights and adjusted them with a dimmer.He then turned on a low tap to fill a small wading pool.‘The water we use comes from a specially filtered tank, like you’d find in any large aquarium house.’
‘That explains the smell.But different.’It was also steamy like a jungle, too.‘Now what?’
‘We mark the eggs.’Jed helped Stone take the eggs from the cooler.‘We do that so we can keep them in the same position.We don’t want the embryo to drown.’
Romy watched on, fascinated, as both Jed and Stone marked each egg, then tenderly placed them into the special padded trays.Jed then tapped some details into a phone app as Stone shared the information of the predicted laying date, parent information, and expected hatching date.
Then they were back in the corridor, with Jed pulling the door shut with a heavy click of the lock.
Using the radio, Jed waved at the security camera in the hallway.‘Hey, Bastion, hatching pod nine has 30 new eggs, approximately one week old.Can you patch in the cameras, activate the sensors, and run a check on the room’s temperature, please.’
‘Will do.’Came the reply over the radio.‘Temperature is set…’ A few clicking sounds came over the speaker.‘Cameras are recording, and the sensors are live.Consider the new batch of babies locked in.’
They stood staring through the window at the dirt-covered lump concealing the eggs, like newborns behind glass in a hospital maternity ward.
This time Romy squeezed her hands into her pockets, fighting the desire to film everything.She could clearly envision the camera angles to capture the details of each egg, the trays, and how the red light softly reflected over the shallow ponds.She hated this, not having her camera with her, while feeling privileged for being here at the same time.‘What happens to them now?’
‘We wait,’ replied Jed.‘They’ll stay there until they hatch.Some other hatcheries will move them from incubators to pens.But Lenora, my sister, has proven that the less they’re handled, the higher the birthrate.It’s why we put them straight into the nesting trays here in these pens, where they’ll stay for a while.’
‘It’s not that different from a hen farm, hatching chickens to lay more eggs and more poultry pieces for the supermarket shelf,’ said Stone.
Romy blinked at the uncanny similarities.‘How will you know they’ll be ready to hatch?’
‘We’ve got sensors on the nesting boxes to alert us, and these pens have soft walls to prevent injury, along with that shallow pool to allow the hatchlings to stay hydrated.Plus, we’ve got techies who monitor these areas daily, cleaning these places to ensure their environments are sterile.We want them to get a good start in life.’
Romy narrowed her eyes at the sleek dome cameras mounted high on the walls.Their discreet lenses could capture sharp, wide-angle footage even in low light, thanks to their infrared capabilities—perfect for filming in dim, humid conditions.Sadly, that type of camera’s film quality wasn’t the best.Unlike Romy’s cameras, sitting in Stone’s ute, that would pick up the details in cinematic clarity.This was torture.
Yet, with this much security in place, the cameras, the swipe cards to get past the heavy metal doors, not to mention the barbed-wire fences and security guard, how could anyone steal anything from inside this hatchery?
