All u profession hatchets out there HELP!

I recently was given 80 Cortunix quail eggs 13 button quail eggs and 30 barred rock eggs. All were fresh! I already had incubating shipped eggs I purchased online (that I paid a pretty penny for) I had 7 malay eggs 6 Serama 6 Ameraucana and 11 (threw out 5 already) Cream Legbars! I have 2 incubators! 1 plastic forced air with an automatic turner and one foam still air! I use the plastic forced air for the first part of the incubation and the foam still air for the last 3 days as my "lock down incubator" I had so many eggs and couldn't stand to let the fresh eggs go bad so I sit all of them! I put most of the barred rocks in with my malay Ameraucana and Serama eggs and then sit all the button and some Cortunix quail eggs on top between the chicken eggs and figured they would get turned with the chicken eggs from the automatic turner! Then I filled two egg cartons with as many Cortunix quail eggs that I could fit and placed 4 barred rocks on the floor of the still air with all of my "lock down" cream Legbar and I did have a couple Mille fluer eggs due to hatch on lockdown in the still air as well! My question is the cream Legbar are due to hatch tomorrow/day after tomorrow is it ok for me to open the still air "lock down" incubator to turn the eggs and switch each carton from side to side while the others are pipped? I really will cry if I've ruined my shipped eggs! I've worked so hard and spent so much money on them! I normally never open the incubator during the last 3 days but I felt I had no choice! ;-(

The humidity for the developing ones particularly would be my biggest concern as you could drown them if the humidity is too high but it needs to be high for the hatch. Quail have been susceptible to humidity issues in my experience. Is there no way to swap them over? If the auto turner one is smaller couldnt you use that as a hatcher with the turner turned off?

Or build another lol, mine cost me about £15 to make!

How did u build yours? I may take the turner out and hand turn!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10A-12V-Dig...067?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27d98a0e63

Im not so good with computers but there is a whole thread on here telling you about different designs. Mine is pretty simple, a styrofoam box with a square cut out the lid, there I have taped securely a picture frame glass panel slightly to the right so I can see the eggs but am not blinded by the light, a digital thermostat is wired into a light bulb so the probe measures the temperature by the eggs (I use a small square of styrofoam from the lid and have the probe poked through it so it is held at the level of the top of the eggs) and the lightbulb is at the other side. I use a fine wire as a barrier to stop hatched babies from burning themselves on the light and I have it as a divider of the box rather than a small box around the light so if I need to add a water tray that can also be behind the barrier away from babies so no drowning. I have a hydrometer with thermometer flat on the base where the eggs are and the digital thermostat also tells me the temperature. Simple lol! Have pasted the thermostat I use above as I have found once its wired (and the instructions provided are useless so youtube it!) its easy to program and use. I have mine set to 37.8 and as soon as the temperature hits 35.8 it kicks the light on and cuts it out at 37.8 so it averages 36.8 throughout.

Awesome I really got ur instructions and will put my husband on that tonight!! Thanks so much!! God bless

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/homemade-easy-cooler-incubator

No problem, finally found the thread I was talking about. I forgot to mention I also have a computer fan wired to an old phone charger to circulate air and stop hot spots as my box is big enough for about 30 or so duck eggs! Have fun, there is something very satisfying about having built it yourself.

How did the building incubator go?

Im now in the same situation as a friend brought me a load of eggs from her lot as a surprise but as my incubator is full that meant building another and as my digital thermostat wont be here til tomorrow earliest they have a crappy one which is a little unreliable so worried about them, but fingers crossed it may yet work out!

Another few bits that occured, I dont know how used you are to quail but certainly the buttons I wouldnt hatch with normal chicks as the chicks will squash them and buttons need removing from the incubator when they are fluffy as they need food and drink after a few hours of hatching-you cant leave them overnight as you would with normal chicks. Quail also need to be taught yo eat and drink, its not enough to just provide food and water as they are daft enough not to recognise it.

I'm really familiar with quail! I have Cortunix bobwhite and buttons! I hatched all that I have now! He just gave me a bunch more which is awesome ill sale them! ;-) I love hatching buttons those are my favorite! I'm a little depressed at the moment I moved my cream Legbar eggs to the lock down incubator I ordered from California! I got 16 and only 1 has hatched! I have one more that im helping but I don't think it'll make it! ;-( Its a shame that every other egg didnt develop at all! Burns me up! Anyway I actually had to build the "ghetto" incubator while my husband was a work by myself! So I used a plastic storage tote! I lined it with that nonslip grip fabric for drawers I taped that to cardboard and lined the inside then put some large hand towels on the bottom then I used a bowl of water and I took the wax dish off the top of my candle warmer and put the whole warmer down in the tote beside the water bowl and then I bought at the dollar store 2 3 packs of little rectangular shaped trays that I also lined with the grip fabric and then placed all the quail eggs in 6 of the trays! I had room in my forced air incubator for all the barred rock eggs besides 2 because I moved all my milles and cream Legbars over to the still air (I hope your following me lol) Anyway I stacked the little plastic trays 3 one way and then 3 more the opposite way on top of the bottom trays and then placed my temp gauge on top of all the eggs and after a little trial and error I ended up with a perfect 99.5 degrees! I did put a smaller bulb in the candle warmer and ended up just needing the one that came in it and I drilled 4 small holes in the top lid but I wrapped the tote in a heating blanket and covered every hole but 1 (I found all you need is one small hole in the top the tote has some small holes in the handle section anyway) I did turn the heating blanket on and found it got a little to hot so I just turned it off! I folded it long ways about a foot wide and then put it on the ground an placed the tote on the main end of the blanket and then wrapped the other end piece up around the side (leaving both the front and back exposed since they already had insulation on both sides I figured they were ok) I made sure to leave the hole closest to the side that's exposed open! I seen lots of videos on YouTube where people made incubators out of storage totes and I was desperate and needed something quick so I did it and knock on wood its working out good so far! I'm gonna have my husband make me a huge cabinet incubator to match my bedroom soon! I'd love to make (the idea just came to me the other day when looking at a cute chicken coop) a little mini barn incubator and make the "hay loft" the chick loft lol use a little drawer from the top of a cabinet and use trim and plexi glass to make it look like a little hay loft like at the top of a actual barn! That would be the cutest little viewing area to see all the newly hatched chicks! Its all in my head I can't wait till he gets started on it! Let me know how urs goes I'd love to see pics of what u came up with!

Oh Im lazy so just used the same design as before but my digital thermostat hasnt arrived in the post so having to use an old reptile one while I wait and it fluctuates way to much so quite anxious as to whether the eggs will survive until the digital one turns up! So glad the homemade coped, its funny but Im always more proud of eggs that hatch from my homemade as I was never very handy so they really do seem miraculous! That sounds lovely, my incubators are all ugly, but they are tucked away in hidden places like the airing cupboard etc so I guess it doesnt matter too much.