5 attepted hatches and nothing...

[duckncover]

I'm actually scared to do a sixth. After all the time I've wanted quail I'm beginning to think it's not going to happen. I have 1 quail now...she's miserably alone and I'm not sure what to do anymore. I got mad and sold my old incubator. So I'm building one but I could already tell my bad luck is starting. I can't find a thermostat for temperatures above 90 degrees. It's eating me alive that I can't hatch anything...I want it so bad but it's just not working. I've invested $100 in quail and never got one.

I'm honestly losing hope!

I have the addiction part down...just not the hatching part.

And to top it off,
I can't find any button quail in my area and I CAN'T travel!

This stinks...

That's all I have to say is it stinks.

 

[JennsPeeps]

I'm so sorry to hear this!!

I assume you've gotten some good feedback in the "hatching" section on what might be going wrong?

 

[duckncover]

nope I figured it out myself...the first batch they weren't hatching because I hadn't a clue about humidity, the 2nd was infertility from ebay, 3rd the eggs stopped developing because of a power outage, 4th more infertility from ebay, 5th they were frozen when I got them.

 

[Mahonri]

Wow. Hang in there. Wish I could help.

Don't give up. It's got to happen eventually.

My first attempt, I got a big ZERO to hatch.

I'm on attempt #2 with a 1588

 

[ThePamperedPullet]

I gave up looking for an inexpensive thermostat for the incubator that I built so I am using a dimmer switch. The homebuilt bator is heated with a 60 watt bulb and with the dimmer switch I can control it almost perfectly. I put in a computer fan run off of a HO train transformer to keep air moving. I just watch the thermometer and once it hits 100 then I just dim the light a bit until it holds at that temp.

 

[duckncover]

how did you do it with the dimmer? is it with the lamp kit? I have one but figured it was impossible can you help?

 

[HappyHatch'en]

Save your money and buy a good unit, less hassle....work your way up to a big unit to incubate and hatch someday....this hobby should be fun and it doesn't sound fun at your house....homemade units do have their challenges and opportunities to over come for consistency in the hatching department.

 

[kryptoniteqhs]

ok first....Where did you get the one quail you have now? Could you get more there? Next, you could also order some started birds or day olds to get shipped in the mail to avoid hatching. Last, buy yourself a LG Still Air down at Tractor Supply. Theyre only 40 bucks. I have one and its great! If you want to add a turner to it so you dont ever have to touch it, thats another 40 bucks. I think you can also add a fan. But, I dont know how much that is. Good luck!

 

[Indiana hens]

I too had bad luck with coturnix eggs. Too many infertile eggs. Last batch that hatched were from
Jim's Bird House , Gonzales Tx 78629.
He may sell chicks also. Birds and eggs were easy to find 2 years ago; so I butchered mine when winter hit. Local Coturnix were hard to find around here last year, I just put them outside last week and they love it! They are prolific!

 

[Bettacreek]

I went with a dimmer as well. All of the thermostats were $30+, were too complicated to wire (I don't want to risk burning my place down) or wouldn't work without being tampered with in some other way. If you have a stable temp in your room, it's actually fairly easy. Mine stays within 2 degrees and I rarely actually have to change it, unless if the weather really spikes up or down (mostly when it spikes up, like it did the past two days, lol). Out of 150 eggs, there're about 37 or so that I believe are developing. I had problems with it in the beginning. I'm getting an LG forced air to compare it to later, but I think that if I could get a fan system rigged into it, and if I hadn't had problems in the first day, my hatch would have been much better.