all who are hatching quail

[Kherome]

I had one chick with a frinkly leg. I made a splint for it and I am happy to say that today he is 90% normal! He'll never be breeding quality but he'll have a chance to grow and make the freezer some day!

 

[RichardandTresa]

Just hatched my first batch of Coturnix Quail yesterday!!! =D

I've been reading TONS of threads here since I was first introduced to Quail this past May, got our first 24 chicks June 10th and have been moving along full force ever since!

I converted our breezeway into our Quail room (Wide double doors at both ends for ventilation, cooling etc, but still able to close them up at night.) Built our first 4 level Quail pen battery (on wheels so we can roll it out onto our back patio for cleaning.) with 4 breeder cages and 4 grow out cages. Designed and built spill proof feeders, Automatic watering system, Clear sandboxes, spill proof Oyster/egg shell dispensers and something we call "The Claw" (Name inspired by "Toy Story") that allows us to reach to the back of the breeder cages and also extract eggs from the sandboxes without much of a disturbance.

I bought a "Little Giant" incubator with egg turner and fan for $45 dollars (found on Craigslist) and made some modifications to it: (Added large glass marbles around the perimeter to act as Heat sinks... They hold the heat in a way that allows the slow reaction time for the wafer thermostat to kick on and off without raising or lowering the temps... Managed to hold temps between 99.5 and 100.2. Monitored the temps and humidity almost every hour for the 17 day incubation period. Also added Quail egg rails and modified them to accept some of our larger eggs without chipping or scraping them at extreme angles and added filler hoses so I could use a syringe from the outside to add water without opening it up. Also cut out the bottom Styrofoam water/humidity channels so I could replace them with the clear plastic water chamber insert...

I'm a motion picture special effects artist and prototype developer which is why I can design and build all this stuff in my studio and shop.

I set 49 eggs (One group from a breeder cage that we think the male was not fertilizing his hens) Marked those eggs to see if there was a different hatch rate than from the breeder group (1-male to 4 females) where the male had visibly been doing "his job"...

The first chicks hatched yesterday at 3PM (One day early!) by this morning, we had 16!

(As I gathered up photos to share with you, It dawned on me that all of this was created since I was first introduced to Quail in May of this year! Whew! (So that's why I've been exhausted...Never mind the chickens, the rabbits, the Tilapia Aquaponic systems and the gardening! LOL! =D not to mention intense gardening!)

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE HERE! The wealth of information and support here at BYC/Quail has been like nothing I've ever experienced on other forums! You're great!

So here I am in the final stages of my first hatch:

Questions:

I have the brooder box ready (Pre tested) and set up with a hot spot at one end (97 degrees), colder at the other end (75 degrees). Some of the chicks are drying out nicely in the incubator while the others continue to hatch. I'm planning on leaving everyone inside the incubator until tomorrow at 3PM (48 hours), before removing the dried chicks and then continuing to run the incubator for 2 more days. (Should only take a couple of minutes and I know the incubator will get right back up to heat and humidity levels.)

Am I on track?

Thanks!

Richard & Tresa

 

[Kherome]

Is there food and water in the incubator? 48 hours is too long for the chicks without food or water.

 

[RichardandTresa]

No there isn't and I've wondered, but I have done SO MUCH reading and have gathered an average to leave them in at 36 to 72 hours... I'm not one to take the word of just one person, rather I look for patterns of the same or similar information to make my decisions...

Obviously I'm still doubting and tend to believe (like you) that 48 hrs is just too long... My apprehension is to open the incubator to remove the dry/older chicks while eggs are still hatching (humidity).

My gut instincts are to:

Remove the larger, more developed, dried out chicks and put them in the brooder. (guessing 24 hrs old)

Leave the "newly hatched", smaller, still wet chicks in (probably hatched late last night/this morning) the incubator until tomorrow, then transfer them into the brooder (guessing 24 hrs old).

Then leave the remaining eggs to hatch for a total of 4 days past the first hatches. They began hatching at 3PM yesterday. Leaving them in for 4 more days would mean continue incubating the remainder (in hopes that there are some late hatches), until Saturday afternoon... a total span of hatching of 4 days from the earliest, to the latest.

I'm thinking along these lines as the collection of all 49 eggs happened over the span of 8 days (pushing past the very recommended 4 day limit, But way under the "do not exceed" limit of 10 days...

Our next batch for incubation will be limited to a maximum of 6 days (maybe 5)... We average 7 eggs a day, and I'd like to set 40... However, (Just thought about this this moment If this strategy will jeopardize the earlier collected eggs and reduces the overall hatch, it makes sense to only collect for 4~5 days and possibly get a higher hatch rate producing the 24 hatched Quail goal... (note, collected eggs are stored in a 40%~50% humidity box in an egg turner at 50 degrees (Last batch reached 60 degrees a few times...

Thanks for your help... Totally open to all opinions...

If I don't hear back before this afternoon (It's 1:30PM here in Oregon at the moment... ) I think I'll follow my gut and your advice to at least remove the ones that hatched earlier, larger, dry and very active.

Thanks again!

Richard

Makes sense?

 

[azer]

No there isn't and I've wondered, but I have done SO MUCH reading and have gathered an average to leave them in at 36 to 72 hours... I'm not one to take the word of just one person, rather I look for patterns of the same or similar information to make my decisions...

Obviously I'm still doubting and tend to believe (like you) that 48 hrs is just too long... My apprehension is to open the incubator to remove the dry/older chicks while eggs are still hatching (humidity).

My gut instincts are to:

Remove the larger, more developed, dried out chicks and put them in the brooder. (guessing 24 hrs old)

Leave the "newly hatched", smaller, still wet chicks in (probably hatched late last night/this morning) the incubator until tomorrow, then transfer them into the brooder (guessing 24 hrs old).

Then leave the remaining eggs to hatch for a total of 4 days past the first hatches. They began hatching at 3PM yesterday. Leaving them in for 4 more days would mean continue incubating the remainder (in hopes that there are some late hatches), until Saturday afternoon... a total span of hatching of 4 days from the earliest, to the latest.

I'm thinking along these lines as the collection of all 49 eggs happened over the span of 8 days (pushing past the very recommended 4 day limit, But way under the "do not exceed" limit of 10 days...

Our next batch for incubation will be limited to a maximum of 6 days (maybe 5)... We average 7 eggs a day, and I'd like to set 40... However, (Just thought about this this moment If this strategy will jeopardize the earlier collected eggs and reduces the overall hatch, it makes sense to only collect for 4~5 days and possibly get a higher hatch rate producing the 24 hatched Quail goal... (note, collected eggs are stored in a 40%~50% humidity box in an egg turner at 50 degrees (Last batch reached 60 degrees a few times...

Thanks for your help... Totally open to all opinions...

If I don't hear back before this afternoon (It's 1:30PM here in Oregon at the moment... ) I think I'll follow my gut and your advice to at least remove the ones that hatched earlier, larger, dry and very active.

Thanks again!

Richard

Makes sense?

I think you should take them out to the brooder as soon as they dry... You could always add warm water to bring the humidity back up... My babies start to eat and drink the same day... 48 hours is too long they will die on you...

 

[azer]

What are you using for a brooder????

 

[RichardandTresa]

Thank you!

I've decided to pull the larger, dry active chicks out and put them in the brooder when my wife gets home to help when she gets home from work (I want to do it as quickly as possible. (I work at home but want an extra set of hands "just in case". I built a divider dividing the water source from the rest of the brooder. I can place them all in under the lamp quicker, then take each one over the "fence/divider" and introduce them to the waterer keeping track to make sure I haven't forgotten any. After they've all been "watered" I can pull out the divider and sprinkle some crushed feed near the feeder to get them accustomed to the food being by the feeder.

What really pushed me over the edge in this decision is when I peeked in through the clear incubator windows, there were two more chicks, "zippering" and the movement caught the attention of the larger chicks who started pecking at it. I immediately covered the windows so that no light went in.

I'll leave later hatching, wet, smaller, not fully developed chicks stay in until tomorrow.

Our Brooder is a 30 gallon Rubbermaid tub. Paper towels on the bottom with an insulating layer of Pine chips and a final top layer of paper towels on top. The waterer is the standard chicken waterer but I cut off the larger diameter lip on the bottom and installed a 4" PVC pipe around the bottom part of the water dish to only allow a 1/2" ring of water exposed. (We've not lost any chicks to drowning and it helps keep the chicks from dragging in dropping and wood shavings. The feeder has 1/2" wire mesh cut and placed inside (across the diameter of the lower pan so they can't scratch the feed out, but still have full access to the feed. We have a metal reflector with clamp hanging from a support so we can control the temp. It's at one end, the feeder in the middle and the waterer over in the cool range. 250watt red infrared heat lamp. Using a digital thermometer to monitor different areas of the brooder floor. Under the lamp: about 96 ~ 101 degrees. Over by the waterer: 75 ~ 80 degrees.

We've used this twice before with 3 day old Coturnix we purchased from a local friend and after two batches of 24 chicks (48 total), and have only lost one.

That's all the specs I can think of... Feed is 30% game-bird and quail feeder. We've been using the same brand and protein content for all our quail. (Thinking of reducing the % on the breeders as fall sets in... We'll be using artificial light to promote egg laying, but we want to be easy on them.

My wife will be home in about 2 hours... Hoping any further advice you have to offer will be shared before then, but I've been scouring the internet for specifics on how long I can leave Quail in the incubator... times range from 24 hours to 3 days! (I cannot imagine 3 days after all they've been through struggling to get out of their shells!

Thank you again!

Best,
Richard

 

[RichardandTresa]

23 Hatched! (We set 49 eggs, but we figured that hens in one of our two breeder quads were not getting fertilized by an "inactive" male... He's doing his job now though.) I didn't think we'd get that many and more eggs are pipping/zipping!) =D

Tresa and I pulled 17 of the larger, more active chicks and placed them in the brooder. Left 6 smaller guys in the incubator with the rest of the full eggs (pulled the shells from the hatched chicks and got to take a couple of quick photos. Temp and humidity went right up within two minutes! (The photo of the incubator shows the large glass marble heat sinks that followed the eggs from the turner into the hatcher. They really do keep the temperature stable!

The brooder chicks are all stable. Introduced each to water, sprinkled some crushed feed on the floor and they all went exploring, eating, drinking and sleeping... The temps must be right because they are not huddling and roam freely from the heated end to the cooler side...

Dinner's ready (Quail! Wouldn't you know it! Is this just "wrong"? LOL!)

Thanks for the help everyone... Looking forward to seeing what the next couple of days bring... Again, I wasn't expecting this good of a hatch considering the circumstances, the incubator and that this was my first time... What a GREAT experience!

Thanks again!

Richard & Tresa

 

[azer]

Love your set up.. Your doing an excellent job ... I like what you did with the food dispenser ... That is an awesome way to save on feed... My little guys waste so much I think because a blend it to a finer mesh... My turkey starter is to big for them to eat the first week of life...

 

[RichardandTresa]

Thank you azer for your kind words (It's nice to hear from others regarding my efforts... I put so much work into all our animals, studying, designing, building, monitoring and taking care of them... I figure that if I'm willing to place them in captivity and then eat them, they deserve the best possible life I can give them. All our rabbits get toys, petting attention... We don't name the ones destined for freezer camp, but we do name our breeders. One of the hardest things I've faced was/is dispatching... I only harvested our first quail a couple of weeks ago... (Although an avid fisherman since childhood, I'd never killed a warm blooded animal before. I want their departure to be as quick, stress-free and painless as possible. So many different ways to dispatch a rabbit and Just didn't like any of them... Too much stress, grabbing, holding upside down, clubbing, wringing their necks... I found a way (still have to finish building it though before the end of the month)... The rabbits LOVE being petted on the top of their heads... They go into the most serene, peaceful trance.. so much so that they would rather I pet them on their heads rather than eat a yummy treat (ANY treat! lol!). So I'm building a captive bolt gun with a prosthetic rubber hand (part of my motion picture special effects work is creature/puppet design and fabrication)... the device will allow me to rub their heads with something soft and familiar and send them into their favorite "space"... When I pull the trigger, it will be instant and certain. (I only share this as a way to share how far I'm willing to go for these creatures...

I think our total hatch will remain at 23... I see no evidence of further pipping or zippers... One of the hatch-lings got stuck in its shell.. head, neck and part of upper body was out, but wings and below was stuck in its shell... This was last night at 10PM... This morning at 6AM, I broke the "cardinal rule" regarding helping chicks out of their shells. I pulled it out and snipped enough shell so that it could squeeze out... It's now almost 7AM and it's walking around and looks like its going to make it!

I'm already planning when to start collecting our next batch of eggs! LOL! We now know that when I collected this batch, one of our male breeders had not fertilized a great many eggs we collected. We're anticipating a much higher hatch rate! Looking back on everything I've done regrading incubating/hatching, I think I will do everything exactly the same except we will collect eggs for only 5 days instead of 8... I'll store them in a 50 degree box at 50% humidity until setting them in the incubator... Temps will be the same along with humidity: between 95.5 and 100.5 with humidity for the first 16 days set at 40% and then up to 70%.

I do have one question regarding lock down day... I'm still confused regarding lock-down ON the 14th day? or the 13th day? I'm a little OCD here... I counted the hours in terms of a day being a 24hr cycle... Do I lock-down at the END of the 13th 24hr cycle? or the end of the 14th 24hour cycle? (Laughing at myself here, but I am really confused about understanding this...)

Again, thank you for your vote of confidence! (BTW... I grind up some of the feed and pick out some from the bottom of the bag (small and fine pieces) and mix it in with the regular to offer both sizes... I figure they'll pick at what they want.

Best,

Richard