November 2016 Hatch-a-long!!

[yeye5]

Chicken update:
All are doing well. These little ones are so quiet, relaxed, & content. They are not needy & never peck at each other. Such a pleasure.

We have 4 black chicks. (One is a cuckoo orp)




We have 1 choc cuckoo orp


4 lavender orps (One was an assisted hatch & was over 2.5 days late! It's perfectly fine now.)


3 Silkie/EE(roo) x Wyandotte(hen) mixes.

Two have very clear chipmunk stripes, the other does not have the side stripes. (Could that be related to gender?)

All 3 are cute! One on left (below) has the biggest crest-like face.



One chick has 5 toes. (None have black skin)

All of the little peeps are beautiful and so different too! I'm sorry you lost one of the quail. For a first time quail hatch the others are doing great. And I hope the other little one is a Button quail instead of a non-thriver.
I think you and DD had lots of courage to try hatching quail! I thought of it this season but not having an incubators I learned that due to size difference they could easily accidentally get hurt due to their tiny size. I'm living vicariously through your hatch!

 

[Faraday40]

So for anyone curious, here's a detailed description of DD's experiment. (The reason why we're hatched chicks in Nov.)

QUAIL:
Since it was for a sci project, we just bought local eggs. I simply asked for the best breed for eggs & she said Jumbo Corturnix. She warned us that spring is a better time to hatch & that fertility would be very low. (She predicted only about 30% would hatch.) However DD's project must be completed by January, so we went ahead. She only charged us for eating eggs.

We bought 30 eggs from the breeder. The hatch went like this:
10 were left alone as a control, 5 hatched, (4 were clear, 1 developed but died)
10 were washed, put in the fridge & driven around to be the "farmer market eggs", 6 hatched (only 1 clear, 3 developed but died just before hatching)
plus 6 that were thrown in but not part of the experiment. 5 hatched (1 clear)
* 4 eggs were cracked open to check for bull's eyes before setting any eggs. They looked mostly fertile, 1 was a ?, & all were made into a mini omelet. LOL

Now comes the fun part of analyzing the data. 62% of the incubated eggs hatched. WOW! So much better than the breeder expected.
The control was 50% & the farmer market eggs were 60%. Yet, is it fair to include eggs that were clear?
If we don't count the clears, the control got 5/6 or 83% and the farmer market eggs got 6/9 or 67%. That makes more sense.

The only other variable I can think of is the position of the eggs in the incubator. Because they were grouped, the positions in the turner were not changed. The control group was along one side & the farmer market group was in the center of the incubator. The incubator is automated, so the lid was rarely lifted.

Does anyone have other thoughts or ideas to add?

We'll be giving most of the quail (& all the the chicks) away. DD wants to train a few quail, so I'm modifying my mom's old parakeet cage in case we decide to keep maybe 3 as house pets until spring. (about 18x36") The alternative is to simply grow all of them out & have quail for dinner in 6 wks. The kids are protesting to that idea.

Anyway, on paper raising quail looks so easy. They're quiet, take up little space, mature quickly, & can be used for both meat & eggs. So, I suppose allowing the kids to keep a few will teach us if quail are a bird for us. (After reading about turkeys, guineas, geese, & ducks, none came even close to be considered.)



CHICKENS:
Because we didn't know if any quail would hatch, we did the same experiment using chicken eggs.
Control: 6/6 hatched = 100%
Farmer Market: 5/6 hatched = 83% (One was a blood ring by day 7.)
+ plus 2 eggs that were thrown in at last min & not part of the experiment.

As far as the 3rd group = eggs from the grocery store. We were unable to find any fertile chicken eggs from the stores (tried 6 diff brands of free range or pasture-raised eggs & ate a lot of omelets.) Gave up & didn't bother trying to incubate infertile eggs. All 3 brands of quail eggs we bought at the store looked fertile, but there was no way to calculate the packing date. The quail eggs we purchased & incubated may have been well over a week old.

 

[Faraday40]

All of the little peeps are beautiful and so different too! I'm sorry you lost one of the quail. For a first time quail hatch the others are doing great. And I hope the other little one is a Button quail instead of a non-thriver.
I think you and DD had lots of courage to try hatching quail! I thought of it this season but not having an incubators I learned that due to size difference they could easily accidentally get hurt due to their tiny size. I'm living vicariously through your hatch!

Glad I can help. I'll try to come back & post updates on their development.
The little one is still alive. Eats & drinks just fine. The rest are busy little bees.

I read that people can incubate quail & chicken eggs together. (but I would not keep them in the same brooder.) If the hatching time makes you nervous, you can always separate the eggs at lockdown. We use modified, clear strawberry containers. Cut out the top & bottom. Hot glue some mesh across the top. You could probably also use mini storage containers from a $1 store.

 

[theceltichorse]

Today is day 19 and I HAVE A PIP!!! Holy cow- I AM A NERVOUS WRECK!

 

[theceltichorse]

What do I do if my others wait until Wednesday (day 21) to pip and hatch? That is 3 days away!

Holy cow- I wasn't this freaking nervous when I was imminent in giving birth MYSELF!!!

 

[theceltichorse]

It's making progress!

 

[orrpeople]

Glad I can help. I'll try to come back & post updates on their development. The little one is still alive. Eats & drinks just fine. The rest are busy little bees. I read that people can incubate quail & chicken eggs together. (but I would not keep them in the same brooder.) If the hatching time makes you nervous, you can always separate the eggs at lockdown. We use modified, clear strawberry containers. Cut out the top & bottom. Hot glue some mesh across the top. You could probably also use mini storage containers from a $1 store. [COLOR=B42000] [/COLOR] [COLOR=B42000] [/COLOR]

Such a fantastic science project! As a former regular school teacher (now I have the big college kids - fun, but not nearly as curious!), I would have loved this experiment! I especially like how you are looking at all of the variables, including positions in the incubator. I think you are correct in not counting the infertile eggs, although including them in an additional statistic would be good.Do you have prior chicken hatching data for the incubator (to set the standard for hatch rates in your particular bator)? Great fun to watch the progress on this! And thank you so much for all your great experienced words of wisdom for those of us newbies to the wonderful world of incubation!

 

[yeye5]

It's making progress!

WoW! Good going little peep!

 

[Cynthia12]

It's making progress!

Whoot! Won't be long we will see a photo of a baby!

 

[Faraday40]

It's making progress!

That's great! Isn't it such fun!?! Have a caera waiting by the incubator.

And, if all of a sudden you hear loud peeping- RUN to the incubator to meet your new chick!

I like to leave the 1st hatch in for about 12-24 hrs. It's peeping will encourage the others to get cracking- literally. Although people say chicks can go without food & water for 3 days, I have never wanted to test that theory. I do believe that keeping the humidity up (by keeping the door closed) really helps all those eggs who have yet to hatch, so I limit the removal of chicks to about once per day. If you must open more than that, you can spray a mist of water against the incubator wall to quickly get the humidity back up to normal.