➡ Quail Hatch Along🥚

[Nabiki]

that’s awesome....i’ve been planning to change to those but haven’t ordered one yet. do you have it plugged into a thermostat or adjust temp by height?

I'm adjusting by height. I have a thermometer in the warm end and one in the cool end of the brooder.

 

[BReeder!]

We'r have approx 20 eggs. I am hoping to set 60. We shall see how many we have on Sunday as that will be a week worth of collecting. I might even wait until Wednesday to get 10 days worth. I am wanting as many as possible since I am not sure of the fertility rate. 11 hens and 4 cocks all in one cage. I also don't want to keep birds who come from one of the cocks because it's not a jumbo brown. So I will be sending any who display a relation to that one to freezer camp.

Let the meat raising begin!

 

[room onthebroom]

I keep forgetting we live in different worlds. Ants in the cage to get water is strange.

Ants getting into the cage to get out of the water makes more sense to me. The differences between swamps and deserts...

Thanks for the laugh! I definitely needed it today!

 

[Kiki]

From everything I've read, I should be keeping the babies with a warm spot between 95-100 degrees for the first week with cooler areas in the brooder. Is it unusual for this to be too warm for the chicks? Mine seem to get too hot (a couple lying flat on their sides with legs extended, the rest scattered to other areas) at those temps. I lower the hot spot to 90 and they perk right up and go eat, drink, try to fly, etc. I accidentally let it get down to 83 for about 45 minutes, and they were huddled together (but not shivering or looking really cold), but scattered and resumed normal activity after bringing the temp back up to 90.

The cooler areas of the brooder are 10-15 degrees cooler than the hot spot.

Edit: Just let me know if I ask too many silly questions.

95 is too hot for me.
I prefer to keep the hot spot just under 90 for the first two days then drop it EACH day there after.

 

[Kiki]

Sounds like my observations aren't off, then. I'll continue to keep an eye on them and adjust to where they seem comfortable. I may even lower the temp a bit more since they seem pretty comfortable as low as 85 now. At this rate, I may only need to give them heat during the night soon.

I have a heat lamp, but instead of a light bulb, I have one of these in it. No light to disrupt their sleep cycle.

I love to hear you lowered it already.



I believe too hot is bad/way worse than cooler.

 

[Kiki]

Sounds like my observations aren't off, then. I'll continue to keep an eye on them and adjust to where they seem comfortable. I may even lower the temp a bit more since they seem pretty comfortable as low as 85 now. At this rate, I may only need to give them heat during the night soon.

I have a heat lamp, but instead of a light bulb, I have one of these in it. No light to disrupt their sleep cycle.

I've never seen one of these. Neat.
I'm going to check them out.

I use the reptile thermostat to plug my regular light bulb clippy lamp in to.
I'm not a far of real heat lamps.

Zilla Temperature Controller https://g.co/kgs/QEU8ud

 

[Kiki]

We'r have approx 20 eggs. I am hoping to set 60. We shall see how many we have on Sunday as that will be a week worth of collecting. I might even wait until Wednesday to get 10 days worth. I am wanting as many as possible since I am not sure of the fertility rate. 11 hens and 4 cocks all in one cage. I also don't want to keep birds who come from one of the cocks because it's not a jumbo brown. So I will be sending any who display a relation to that one to freezer camp.

Let the meat raising begin!

They are all getting along fine being housed together?

Do the boys make a lot of noise?

 

[BReeder!]

They are all getting along fine being housed together?

Do the boys make a lot of noise?

They absolutely are. I will note they refused to lay when we had 30 or 40 in there. But right now they are laying very well. There is no fighting either. Tge makes make some noise every now and then, but they are not very noisy. My neighbors don't even know we have quail. Their noise blends in with the wild birds to the untrained ear. By the time the next batch is out of the brooder, I intend to build a second cage as well as a divided breeder cage finally.

 

[muddy75]

since I fixed the temp problem this hatch is looking to be 69+% hatch rate! put 26 eggs in lockdown and 8/15 from Friday hatched, 10/11 from Sunday hatch!! (2 assist of breech babies). sunday hatch was all homegrown! 24 babies including 6 from baked hatch!
10 are “yellers”, 1 tibetan, 1 red range, and 12 jumbo or sparkly. first “assist” looks ok but not sure about 2nd yet....will know more tomorrow. re-candled some of remaining eggs and pretty sure they are all late quitters but 24 more hours just in case!!

 

[el dorado quail]

Finishing the paint on the aviary today, also getting the skirt on, putting large doses of mole max in trench as i backfill, cutting hwc for sides...maybe take some naps in there