Incubating and discouraged

[RosieR]

Hi friends,
I’m on my second incubation attempt ever. First time using my improved diy incubator after learning a lot from my not great first incubation attempt.
I’ve got 48 coturnix eggs that I picked up from a neighbor that says they typically get a 75% hatch rate.

It’s day 10 and I candled all the eggs tonight thinking it would make life simpler on lockdown day if I pulled out anything that looked like it hadn’t been fertile.
Well things aren’t looking good. I want to say there are 3 eggs that look dark enough that there’s a chick in there. Everything else looks either really clear, or like you can see a yolk floating around inside.
I pulled the super clear ones out (there were 5) and I left the probably not viable ones in there because nothing smelled off and I’m hoping I just suck at candling and I’m wrong.
Temp has been set to 99.5 and swings about .5 degrees either way. Temp has been verified by 2 other accurate thermometers.
40% humidity give or take 5%.
Forced air, and automatic egg turner is set up.
I’m just really bummed, I thought I had this incubator set up perfect.

 

[Little Jerry Seinfeld]

I'm sorry, hopefully you just couldn't see. I just hatched my first quail eggs and I candled some but they were harder to candle for me than chicken eggs. Let us know what happens, maybe you will get suprised.

 

[albinosilver]

Maybe the eggs just weren’t fertile to begin with? Maybe your neighbours birds are gtting old and used to have 75% hatch rate but dont anymore.

 

[Acre4Me]

Don’t give up yet. They are hard to candle. I made an incubator (still-air, styrofoam cooler type), with zero experience incubating or hatching. Temps fluctuated between 99 to 106!!! Mostly temps stayed around 100-101. At day 10 I got rid of the clear eggs. We ended up with approx 60% hatch rate despite the crude set up and temp variations - and assuming anything other than a clear egg might hatch. Also, we found that several eggs had mostly or fully developed chicks that did not hatch out, so the number of fertilized eggs was high but maybe succumbed to a deformity or too high temps.

 

[Little Jerry Seinfeld]

Don’t give up yet. They are hard to candle. I made an incubator (still-air, styrofoam cooler type), with zero experience incubating or hatching. Temps fluctuated between 99 to 106!!! Mostly temps stayed around 100-101. At day 10 I got rid of the clear eggs. We ended up with approx 60% hatch rate despite the crude set up and temp variations - and assuming anything other than a clear egg might hatch. Also, we found that several eggs had mostly or fully developed chicks that did not hatch out, so the number of fertilized eggs was high but maybe succumbed to a deformity or too high temps.

That's as bad as me, my homemade incubator had Ben doing pretty good but this last week and a half we have had temps from 100 to 105, nights 50 to 60. So my incubator has been wildly fluctuating. Found it on 93 once and 106 4 times, 104 alot. Even with lid propped open! I still just hatched 4 out of 8 fertile eggs though, (I'm suprised any) all 4 little quail are doing good so far, day 2 today. One born weak but none have any deformities or even curled toes. So surely with as many eggs as the op set , they will get some!

 

[Acre4Me]

That's as bad as me, my homemade incubator had Ben doing pretty good but this last week and a half we have had temps from 100 to 105, nights 50 to 60. So my incubator has been wildly fluctuating. Found it on 93 once and 106 4 times, 104 alot. Even with lid propped open! I still just hatched 4 out of 8 fertile eggs though, (I'm suprised any) all 4 little quail are doing good so far, day 2 today. One born weak but none have any deformities or even curled toes. So surely with as many eggs as the op set , they will get some!

They should get some hatched - it will depend first on how many were fertilized to begin with. We set 55 eggs (about 10 were from young hens just beginning to lay, so low expectations for those) the other 45 were from a quail farm with pretty high fertility. We got 32 healthy chicks, if I recall, plus the ones that grew but didn’t hatch.

 

[mdees88]

Once I set my eggs I don't open the incubator again until day day 14 (lockdown). Quail eggs are hard to candle and waiting until lockdown assures me that I won't "accidently" throw away any potentially viable eggs....

Leave them all in, if your Temps have been stable you may have a better turnout than you expect...

 

[le_bwah]

I thought I had five duds at day nine, but I left them in just in case. Day 18, three of those "duds" hatched! I'd leave in any that look even a bit cloudy/yolky, just to make sure. Quail eggs are hard to candle.

 

[RosieR]

Thanks everyone, I won’t give up yet!
I had 7 hatch out of 36 on my first try, of those 4 survived. The fluctuations on that bator were so terrible though. I’ve since upgraded almost everything.
Eggs are also from a different source this time.
I had timed this hatch so that the chicks would be big enough to go outside and easy to look after when we go on holiday, so I won’t try to hatch another batch until we return. Lots of time to make any changes I overlooked somehow.
The only thing I can think of that is kind of weird about my bator is the egg turner. I bought a cheap one from China and the motor runs constant. I felt it was a bit overkill and put it on a lamp timer so it runs for 15min every hour (lowest amount of time it can be set). At the end of the slotted time the turner ends up in a random position that varies from fully turned to almost not turned.
I’m not sure if this is a problem or not. I hand turned last time.

 

[RosieR]

That's as bad as me, my homemade incubator had Ben doing pretty good but this last week and a half we have had temps from 100 to 105, nights 50 to 60. So my incubator has been wildly fluctuating. Found it on 93 once and 106 4 times, 104 alot. Even with lid propped open! I still just hatched 4 out of 8 fertile eggs though, (I'm suprised any) all 4 little quail are doing good so far, day 2 today. One born weak but none have any deformities or even curled toes. So surely with as many eggs as the op set , they will get some!

I’m glad your little one is holding on. Soon you’ll never know the difference!