➡ Quail Hatch Along🥚

[Nabiki]

It’s just too cold here too. Assume I know nothing.... (coz that would be right!) do infra red bulbs come in wattages? Do I need to do a volume calculation? I’m sure I heard somewhere red light can make birds aggressive? Is that even vaguely true?
Would you mind telling me your thoughts on what to choose on infra red bulbs?
I completely get that everyone’s set up is different - I’m not here to judge - I’m just sure I could do better! Everyday I’m grateful for learning something new.

You should have a thermometer at chick level. That way you know what temperature it is down there. The best thing, in my experience, is to let the chicks tell you. If they're huddled together and climbing over each other, they're cold. They're hanging out at the cool end of the brooder or laying spread out and panting, they're hot.

 

[anvia]

When you talk about high losses, what percentage are you talking about? I lose maybe 2% of my chicks.

Well, with quail I feel we’ve failed. We do better with chickens ducks etc, but quail seem to be harder to get to adulthood. It’s been variable but poor. One hatch of 14 live chicks - we lost them all over about 6 weeks to just insane outcomes.... that included the chick that managed to get entangled in paper towel. We rarely hatch more than 50 quail - that’s for practical reasons Our eggs tend to come through the post so I feel 50% is a reasonable hatch rate on posted eggs. We’ve had the internal but not external pip thing. The creative life expectancy thing is just galling... we’ve worked out what is happening with our very clever cat.... = no bodies. Plus last year I think we had roughly 90% boys hatch across all poultry species.... so that has its consequences.

This year I’m determined we will do better!

I’m sure the external pip issue is me getting humidity wrong - so that’s worth a try. They are all sitting at 30% 37.5 C in the hatcher right now. We shall see....

 

[RoosterML]

It’s just too cold here too. Assume I know nothing.... (coz that would be right!) do infra red bulbs come in wattages? Do I need to do a volume calculation? I’m sure I heard somewhere red light can make birds aggressive? Is that even vaguely true?
Would you mind telling me your thoughts on what to choose on infra red bulbs?
I completely get that everyone’s set up is different - I’m not here to judge - I’m just sure I could do better! Everyday I’m grateful for learning something new.

Not sure how many birds you’ll be doing the most common wattage is 250watt. For the first few days I would try for around 100*F for brooder temp. If it’s to hot raise the light if it’s to low you can lower the light closer to them.
250 watt will cover larger area in cooler temps
175 smaller area.
I’ll have hopefully 50 chicks and will be using 250 watt bulb in temps that will likely be around freezing

 

[anvia]

I should probably clarify - we’ve been successfully incubating & hatching chickens for 10+ years. We have many many different incubators, some suit certain species better than others.... - re-brooding we had a tried & tested routine... until the cat outsmarted it. Last year we had problem with the internal / external pip across all species.... we’ve only been hatching quail for maybe 2 years with varying success....
Im sure I can do better with quail & there’s always more to learn.

 

[anvia]

Hatching has started! Yay!!!!!

 

[Northernflame]

First quail of the year just hatched! Such a cutie I have to tell somebody haha

 

[RoosterML]

First quail of the year just hatched! Such a cutie I have to tell somebody haha

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Nice!! Looks tasty

 

[Northernflame]

Nice!! Looks tasty

Hey! That’s my child you’re talking about

 

[Northernflame]

To be fair he must be tasty cause he keeps trying to eat his own toes

 

[RoosterML]

Hey! That’s my child you’re talking about

Ok I’ll wait until it’s an adult... is that better?