1st Hatch with My LG

[B. Kossum]

Just wanted to update ya'll on my first hatch ever and the LG that actually delivered lol. I ordered 34 bobwhite quail eggs off Ebay- 3 of them never started developing so I was left with 31. Out of those, 28 hatched and all are doing well. I haven't done the math, but the percentage was a lot better than what I expected after hearing all ya'lls reviews on here about the LG and it being my first hatch lol. Maybe I just got lucky. They started hatching early morning of day 23 and by the middle of day 24 there were 17 out. I had just about given up on them, but today (day 25) I had another 11 hatch. What's weird is that they were all in 2 rows at one end of the bator. Must have had a low temp in that area or something. Either way all of them are doing good. It's crazy to look at today's hatches and see how much smaller they are compared to the 2 day olds.

Also, I ordered Tennessee Reds and all of the babies except one are obviously red. The other one has the stripes like a Wyandotte chick or some of the EE's I've seen. What's up with that? I'll try to get a pic up.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Personally I liked the LG. Sure, it took a little getting used to, but it was not all that bad. As for it being your first hatch, apparently you did your homework first instead of 'doing them like chickens' like the rest of us did

The LG's are most often still-air incubators, so you probably did have temperature variances. You could get a fan kit for it or just be sure to move the eggs around the incubator (on the right side of the incubator one turn, then on the left for the next turn) so they all get the same 'temperature' and hatch at the same time. Though day 25 is not all that late.

 

[B. Kossum]

Yea, I guess you could say I did my homework lol. I had been raising Coturnix (although not hatching any), so I've been reading the quail threads for a while. I still think I got lucky though. I mean shipped eggs, an LG, and my first time. Man you should've seen how proud I was. I couldn't afford the extras for the bator (trays, turner, fan) but I hot glued a fan from one of my wife's laptops in there. It's not very powerful, but maybe it helped some. Other things I did were put four sponges in the bottom and two water bowls. For some reason I was having problems keeping humidity up. I mean I live in Mississippi- humidity should not be an issue lol. I think these storms, tornadoes, and floods just have everything messed up. We actually had a Spring this year. Normally it goes straight from Winter to Summer- or atleast it feels that way. Oh yea, I also bought an "aftermarket" thermometer for a couple of dollars.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Humidity is hard to raise in a still-air incubator. There's no air blowing on the water to help it evaporate. I could never get mine over 60% and it wouldn't stay over 50% for very long.
We always have a Spring here but it's dragging out a lot more than usual. We don't have Fall, goes from 80-90 degrees one week to 30-40 degrees the next

 

[B. Kossum]

I use hot water to raise it quickly. Just fill up my bowls with steaming hot water out the faucet and put them in there. You just have to watch the temp though. The hot water will cause it to go up.