Quail Eggs and Candling

About two months ago I purchased five Japanese quail. I supplied them with a brooder light on their cage and within two weeks I was getting an egg a day from each of the hens (there are four hens and one roo). After a while of just eating the eggs and working out dietary issues with the hens, I finally got my incubator. It is a styrofoam Little Giant, and I will admit that the heat and humidity control is not so great. That is why we are practicing with quail eggs before trying chicken or duck eggs.

I have been teaching myself to candle, but it can be difficult to figure out with the tiny quail eggs. I have some pictures of infertile eggs, as well as what I believe is a fertile egg, and also a 'questionable.'

Our quail live outside and we recently had a cold snap, which I think resulted in most of the 'dud' eggs.


This egg is infertile. It has already been culled. It had a cytoblast which did not develop for some reason (it was likely one of the 'cold snap' eggs).


This egg was also infertile. It has been culled. It had a cytoblast.






This egg is one of the ones I suspect is fertile. It is dark, with a barely visible 'air bubble' at one end.




Mystery egg! I can't tell if it is fertile or infertile. I've left it in the incubator for the time being.


Anybody with any suggestions or wagers on the status of the final egg is welcome. I am having some minor difficulties in distinguishing between 'that shadow is a yolk' and 'that shadow is a chick', but I have managed to pick out 10+ duds without accidentally cracking out any baby quail so far.

I always just wait quail eggs out sadly, sniffing them every few days to toss out the duds. They are SO HARD to candle compared to chicken eggs, so so hard.

Yes, quails eggs are so hard to candle. If I hatch a small quantity of quail eggs, I'll candle often and watch for changes. The egg that's dark, is what I look for when searching for development. Leave those in. That's really the only way I can tell with quails. Always err on the side of caution. I made a mistake of culling a viable quail egg. Felt terrible.