all who are hatching quail

[PinkBee]

I know we're not supposed to help, but one of my chicks got stuck in his egg. Pipped on day 17, zipped sometime, but on day 18 it was completely still. Day 19 I thought, what the heck, let's see why it died, and picked it up and gently pulled the two halves apart (egg was very hard and crackly dry.) I put it down and almost immediately, the chick popped out! It had completely curled feet, but a day of painter's tape snow shoes fixed that. He was very runty for a while, got a lot of holding time in, and now isn't even the smallest of my chicks (3+ weeks old) and seems to love being held. Pick him up and he goes limp, closes his eyes, and makes crickety noises. So, yeah. I know we're not supposed to help, but maybe sometimes we should.

 

[Cheyen]

It's not a bad idea to help. The only problem is that a lot of people don't know how or when to help, and end up making the situation worse. It's recommended to help the chick (if possible) after 36(?) hours of pipping. Sounds like you got lucky.

 

[mckeesbackyard]

I think towards the end the humidity needs to be higher than what you had, high 60s. This can help the chick to get out of the egg, because if the humidity is too low they can stick to the inside of the shell.

Add wet sponges or towels to crank it up.

I did put a huge sponge in there at lock down but after reading a bit more (unfortunately after the fact)--I should really up my humidity since I live way above sea level & ensure that there's plenty of ventilation (which poses yet another problem keeping the temperature at 99.5). I will get another sponge but good to know that I could use a towel as well. Thanks!

 

[teradragon]

ahhhh... amazing how everything affects everything else! How far above sea level are you? I'm 215m which is about 645ft above sea level. I'd imagine you are more because you live on a mountain!

 

[dc3085]

I did put a huge sponge in there at lock down but after reading a bit more (unfortunately after the fact)--I should really up my humidity since I live way above sea level & ensure that there's plenty of ventilation (which poses yet another problem keeping the temperature at 99.5). I will get another sponge but good to know that I could use a towel as well. Thanks!

The easiest way to increase humidity is to increase the evaporative surface area. Use a wider/longer water container and it should spike your humidity more. Sponges work well but discharge their moisture quickly leading to the need to be refilled during lockdown. You can buy grout sponges at home depot or anywhere that sells tile supplies and if you have room to, put the grout sponge (they are about 10 times the size of a kitchen sponge) half in the water half out and that will help the sponge stay loaded yet still provide the evaporative area you need. Also you incubator should have an air outlet that you can restrict in order to raise humidity, just be careful not to restrict it to the point you get no fresh air.

 

[mckeesbackyard]

The easiest way to increase humidity is to increase the evaporative surface area. Use a wider/longer water container and it should spike your humidity more. Sponges work well but discharge their moisture quickly leading to the need to be refilled during lockdown. You can buy grout sponges at home depot or anywhere that sells tile supplies and if you have room to, put the grout sponge (they are about 10 times the size of a kitchen sponge) half in the water half out and that will help the sponge stay loaded yet still provide the evaporative area you need. Also you incubator should have an air outlet that you can restrict in order to raise humidity, just be careful not to restrict it to the point you get no fresh air.  

We're about 6500 above sea level which I thought was great bec we have four seasons & snow considering we're in Arizona...until I got into poultry... And then we started dealing with heating coops, frozen water bottles, & hate rate
With the turner inside the genesis 1588 there's barely room for a sponge (I use the big kind for cleaning cars). But you're right about increasing the surface area...I will have to find a way to pin more wet sponges to the top wall area of the incubator or find a way to replace the plastic water reservoir beneath the mesh wire so it'll accommodate more water in a bigger area than the current maze-like design.
Thanks!

 

[La Casa de Pollo]

We're about 6500 above sea level which I thought was great bec we have four seasons & snow considering we're in Arizona...until I got into poultry... And then we started dealing with heating coops, frozen water bottles, & hate rate
With the turner inside the genesis 1588 there's barely room for a sponge (I use the big kind for cleaning cars). But you're right about increasing the surface area...I will have to find a way to pin more wet sponges to the top wall area of the incubator or find a way to replace the plastic water reservoir beneath the mesh wire so it'll accommodate more water in a bigger area than the current maze-like design.
Thanks!

Soggy wadded up paper towels work wonders too.

 

[mckeesbackyard]

Soggy wadded up paper towels work wonders too.

Hatch rate, not hate rate Althought, don't you just "hate" a low hatch rate considering these were your eggs & weren't shipped? I am at 63% with water in practically all the surface area of the reservoir & a big sponge with the ventilation valve unplugged. At lockdown, I will put more sponges & paper towels since with the turner gone there'll be more space.
One quick unrelated question is, has anyone here ever incubated a really large egg? Every once in awhile, I'll get a 21g egg & the biggest have been a 25g. Thought of putting a couple in the bator but worried that if it's a double yolker, it may not hatch..?

 

[teradragon]

if you go on youtube you can watch chick twins hatch... it happens!

 

[muus]

Hatch rate, not hate rate Althought, don't you just "hate" a low hatch rate considering these were your eggs & weren't shipped? I am at 63% with water in practically all the surface area of the reservoir & a big sponge with the ventilation valve unplugged. At lockdown, I will put more sponges & paper towels since with the turner gone there'll be more space.
One quick unrelated question is, has anyone here ever incubated a really large egg? Every once in awhile, I'll get a 21g egg & the biggest have been a 25g. Thought of putting a couple in the bator but worried that if it's a double yolker, it may not hatch..?

Sometimes the large eggs and the small eggs hatch, but they aren't normal. They are very big(in the large eggs) or very small(in both).
I have a very small egg of a button quail, it's like a half of a normal egg, but it's one of few they passed the water test.
A question I have it's why when i did the water test they only float three, and yesterday they floated more eggs. I was amazed

I hope they will hatch, and specially the smallest egg