Do you have any headcannons about Sangheili eggs/gestation and new hatchlings?
Yes!
Sangheili gestate for about 3 months. During that time period, they tend to get a bit bloated, and the muscles of their abdomens harden up. This can be felt through the female's skin, and they often refer to touching this as "feeling the eggs", although you can't actually feel the eggs through the skin.
Their miscarriage ability is very sensitive (one of the reasons why their hatchrate is much lower than the human birthrate). Things like space-travel and high-stress can easily cause a miscarriage (the egg comes out before it's ready), so usually, pregnant females are not allowed in space or are heavily monitored.
When it is time to lay, they lay a clutch of 1-4 eggs. Each egg has a chance of being "dead" (no embryo). The more eggs there are in a clutch, the higher chance for any one to be dead. If a Sangheili lays more than 4, guaranteed that Egg 5+ is dead. (Another contributing factor to their hatchrate)
Because of how often they have dead eggs and miscarriages, they have many superstitions meant to avoid it. These include:
An egg will be more likely to live if he can smell that there are many females who will help raise him, so other females often use pheromone sprays to increase their pheromones when around the expectant mother.
Eggs can hear their mothers' heartsbeat, and making it pound too much will upset the egg and shatter its shell, so you must keep her from becoming too upset.
Despite the aforementioned one, she should be encouraged to watch combat sporting events. The egg will be strengthened by the smell of the warrior pheromones and warrior blood-spilling.
The female should greatly increase her protein-eating to ensure strong shell-creation.
Young boys should stay away from the expectant mother. The egg will smell them, think of them as competition, and be too scared to be laid.
Qikost is the goddess of mothers and young. An expectant mother should diligently pray to her for a good clutch.
Their eggs are smaller than the head of a human newborn. Given that female Sangheili are also much bigger than humans, this adds up to their laying being little more stressful than the amount of pressure you might need for a particularly difficult bowel movement. The concept of the danger and pain of a human birth is absolutely astounding to them.
Their eggs have a soft, leathery shell, and their brood time is dependent on race and the gravity in which the female was exposed while gestating (so, it takes different amounts of time depending on what planet she is on). Generally, the timeframe ranges from 2-10 months, with Sangheilios being about 5 months. (I know canon once said it was like immediate, but that is dumb.) Eggs must be kept warm. In traditional times, they were buried in dirt mounds, as is also common in some low-class Keeps for tradition's sake, but in high-class ones, they are kept in brooding chambers.
Hatching is considered a celebratory occasion, and much of the family will gather to watch it.
It is considered inappropriate for an adult to help a hatchling hatch, as this is his first gauntlet. If he fails to hatch in time, he can die in his egg. However, hatchling Sangheili have an instinct to help each other out of their eggs, and some Keeps allow this as a way of encouraging bonds. It is common for a Sangheili to adopt a life debt to any Sangheili who, as a hatchling, helped him out of his egg.
Hatchling Sangheili are about as sapient as hatchling crocodiles (and are both a similar size and make similar sounds). Unlike human newborns, a newhatch Sangheili is rather mobile (crawling quadrupedaly), able to eat solid food, etc. However, a newhatch Sangheili is incredibly instinct-driven. They quite literally act like baby reptiles, with their sapience and curiosity kicking in after a few months. For the first few months of their life, they also sleep almost constantly between feedings, and grow rapidly, going from able to fit in their mother's palm to as tall as her forearm by their first year. They tend to squeak a lot at each other and their mother, but fall quiet when their mother or other squeaking newhatches aren't around. They do not scream anywhere as loud as human babies do.
They are little biters, especially when they are still in their instinct-driven era. They perceive everything as "sibling", "food", or "mother", based on smell, and if you aren't sibling or mother, they will go for blood. While it's insanely unlikely for a Sangheili to be mobbed to death by a horde of babies, it's not impossible, especially a pre-pubescant Sangheili against a big enough baby horde. It'd basically be "death by a thousand paper cuts", and their teeth aren't long enough to effectively pierce an adult Sangheili's skin, but they could penetrate a human's.
This is also why it's important to be there to witness the hatching: they will perceive by scent any non-hatchling Sangheili who were present at their hatching as "mother", and any hatchling Sangheili as "sibling". Only after about a year old do they start actually registering their real mother from other adult Sangheili. They can be made to be used to your scent over time, though.
After about a year old, they become simultaneously strong enough to actually be able to bite an adult Sangheili, and, luckily, smart enough to generally recognise their own species as "not food".
When kept in a moist environment, they fall into and stay in a deep sleep, only waking when the air dries out or they hear their mother. For their ancient ancestors, this meant a mother could leave her baby in a mud pit or make a mud nest for him, and trust he'd stay there while she went out hunting. For modern Sangheili, this of course means that their cribs have humidity control, to ensure the little one stays still and asleep.
(What I headcanon the Pods in the BloodLines comic are)
Once they become old enough to start walking bipedally, they also begin toilet-training. If their tail has been removed, which occurs at hatching, then both of these training times will take 2x to 3x longer, as their brain tries to balance them with a "phantom tail". Even leaving a half tail (like what Fira and Naz have) is enough to ensure the tail has enough weight left to prevent walking difficulties.
Also, I show here what the proportions are for different ages. The youngest is probably around 6 months, and the eldest is in early puberty.
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