After hatch - Into the brooder or Leave in incubator to wait for others to finish hatching?

Hello all,
Well, my first hatch was a fail. Very low hatch rate. I think that I have identified multiple areas where improvement can be made. Hindsight is 20/20, but I should have read more and assumed less. Well onto the next hatch...


My question is: How long can quail stay in the incubator after they hatch?


Given that some quail will hatch earlier then others, can the chicks stay in the incubator say 24-48 hours until the bulk of the eggs, or all of the eggs hatch? I want to try to avoid opening up the incubator when some have hatched already and some are only piped.

You can leave chicks in the incubator for 24 hours with zero worries. I've had to leave early hatchers in for 30 or more hours before and there was no harm done, but you should always try to remove them in the first 12-24 hours.

You should never open the door to remove the chicks when eggs are pipped if possible. You will shrink wrap the chicks in their shells exposing them to dry air at that point. Most shrinkwrapped chicks don't make it without experience help. You can scatter some food in the bator if you want to but most chicks aren't going to eat anything until their yolk sac has been fully absorbed (which takes about 24 hours hence the 24 hour bator limit).

Most of the chicks that are going to hatch will all hatch within a few hours of each other. This is because they communicate in the shell to organize the hatch. You can sometimes hear them peeping in the shell.

Often you will have a a couple chicks hatch 20-30 hours before the others. When that happens i try to remove the early chicks after about 12 hours if there are no pipped eggs. If there are more than a couple pipped eggs, chicks in my incubator must wait it out until the bulk of the hatch is completely dry. I've never had one die in there and some have been left beyond 30 hours. But that's what happens when you hatch the day before the other 119 eggs, the good of the many outweighs the good of one or two.

Helping chicks hatch is pretty much a no no too. People do save some chicks that wouldn't hatch otherwise, but I've found for everyone that I've helped that survived there was one I had to euthanize because it was under developed and not really fit to hatch to begin with. Hatching is a chicks first encounter with Mr. Darwin. It also helps to stimulate circulation in the chicks.

Spelling edit

I pulled my dry guys out every 12hrs by taking the incubator into the bathroom, turned the hot water on in the shower and filled the room with steam first so as not to lose humidity once I open the incubator...

WattaReelDrag said:

I pulled my dry guys out every 12hrs by taking the incubator into the bathroom, turned the hot water on in the shower and filled the room with steam first so as not to lose humidity once I open the incubator...

Click to expand...

Adding 2 tablespoons of hot water dropped into the water pan will spike most incubators back up to where they need to be when you open the door. The bathroom was a good idea, but more work than you need to do.

Buttons must come out as soon as dry as they do not have yolk enough to keep them alive for more them an hour or so. I did not see what type of quail we were talking about so ...

^ Coturnix