Coturnix Quail hatched her own eggs

Hi
My name is jack and I was wondering if you would be able to help me? I'm currently in college studying animal management and am in my final year. I have to do a year long project of my choice and have chosen to do a study on What Influences Japanese Coturnix Quail to go Broody in Captivity? I have noticed you have had success with one of your quails going broody. If you would be able to fill out a questionnaire for me that would be great as I need knowledge and first hand experience of other people to go towards my study. I have had a Japanese quail hen of my own going broody also and am trying to see if I can recreate it but also to see what caused her to do it in the first place. I already have my suspicions but need other people's experiences and idea to make up my project. If you would be willing to partake in my project please let me know as it would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you wouldn't mind sending me your email address I could then email you an attachment of my questions and you could fill it in for me and email it me back.
Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.
 
Hi
My name is jack and I was wondering if you would be able to help me? I'm currently in college studying animal management and am in my final year. I have to do a year long project of my choice and have chosen to do a study on What Influences Japanese Coturnix Quail to go Broody in Captivity? I have noticed you have had success with one of your quails going broody. If you would be able to fill out a questionnaire for me that would be great as I need knowledge and first hand experience of other people to go towards my study. I have had a Japanese quail hen of my own going broody also and am trying to see if I can recreate it but also to see what caused her to do it in the first place. I already have my suspicions but need other people's experiences and idea to make up my project. If you would be willing to partake in my project please let me know as it would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you wouldn't mind sending me your email address I could then email you an attachment of my questions and you could fill it in for me and email it me back.
Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.
So exciting to hear you are doing a study. I will be very interested as I have started trying to breed the broody trait back into the Japanese quail.
I started off with 3 females in a 150x80cm enclosure. Lined with wood shavings and a large platform that they can go up on for food and water (no shavings) and can also go under. It's about 15cm high. My first quail went broody in there in winter. the eggs were not fertilised and I stopped her from sitting by taking the eggs away. I was going to wait till spring and hope that she goes broody again. Sadly, my dog got her before then.
Eventually I got 3 females and 1 male. Same set up. One of the females went broody. She was young. She sat on them for 5 days then a storm came and she stopped. Then a month later, she started sitting again. THis time she made it to 13 days before a storm hit again. The interesting thing is, the quail who went broody was brooded by another quail herself - a mummy adopted it. My friend has a quail that's unusually broody and would brood all the time and whatever it can brood, even chicken chicks! So my friend bought some baby quail chicks for her. And sure enough, she gathered them under her wings. All 13 of them. ONe of those ones is my broody chick that I still have now. I thought that was interesting as they are not genetically related. Could it be the behaviour that's been passed on? that got me really excited so I decided to try and pass on that behaviour.
So with the eggs that my broody left after 13 days, I continued to incubate them manually. Once they hatched, I suddenly had the idea of borrowing my friend's broody quail. It was amazing to watch. I took her from her home and placed her in a strange place with 4 cheeping chicks. I really think it would have been too much for her to take over. Within 10mins, she was gathering them under her!!!
Since then, I have built a large enclosure for them to roam in the daytime in. It's about 5x1.5m. It's on dirt and under dense trees. I am hoping this will encourage them as it's a bigger space and more natural. After reading lots of posts from here, perhaps I need to place some straw or grass in there, too, and perhaps some low hiding places.
Also, my friend kindly gave that mummy quail to me for good! She wanted the best for her and the enclosure is more close to what she had in the past when she was free ranged. She now has to be in an aviary because they got a dog. so she figured what I have will be better for her. She's an alpha quail and loves roaming free. The only things is she has already lived more than half her life so I cant have her forever!
My email is [email protected]
I would love to do your questionnaire for you.
 
@JackBaker
Hi Jack. Interesting project. There have been a few youtube videos where an owner has ve taken video of there quail that has hatched it's own eggs.

When I had my girls on grass in an outdoor pen one of mine went broody.

The thing I noticed in my case was that she didn't start sitting until there was over 10 eggs. The YouTube video was similar in that she was sitting on a lot.
 
I normally had 4 quails in that pen, but had recently moved two females out (due to fighting), leaving just the one male and female in there. Conventional advice is to have at least 3 females to a male so I didn't intend to leave them that way. However, they were so calm (and I was busy), so I left them that way for a fortnight or so and that's when she became broody.

The only other thing I had done differently was to put a lot more of the straw that I usually use for the chickens into the quail hutch. In the past I've put smaller 'broken' amounts in there and they'd shown next to no interest in being in there. This time I put a big wad of it in there and she swirled it into a nest shape when she got broody.

I don't know if these circumstances contributed to her becoming broody or just coincidence, but i will be replicating them in the future to see if it happens again.

Meanwhile - all 12 babies are happy and well and the mothering instinct in her is very strong - i thought she'd be shakey at best - perhaps hatching her eggs and leaving the chicks to die - but no, she knows exactly what to do.
I know this is an old thread, but I’ve just had the same thing happen. I had two females in with one male, and one female pair bonded to the male (he didn’t even mate the other female for awhile until his pair bonded mate started chasing him away to guard her eggs - all her eggs became infertile). Then I had a grass plant in there that went dry (in addition to straw) and she started pulling all the dead grass off to make a nest and went semi-broody over 3 eggs. The male kept trying to break her eggs (he got that nasty habit when I was on vacation and the protein ratio must have been off with the animal sitter).

I locked him away in the top part of the little hutch/coop because he was being a terrorist. Now I’m hoping she gets even broodier.
I’m excited to read your story because the circumstances and early events sound like mine so far. I watched her roll the eggs underneath her. She’s not staying on them that long though but she’s obviously making a nest.

On another note - Not sure why though but she keeps kicking one egg out. Does that mean it’s bad? She’ll sit on the other two but kicks one out.
 

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