Any hope for the anxious novice?

[Peskypigeon]

Hello Everybirdie,
I have been in love with King/button quails forever. Finally, I buckled this fall and bought two batches from separate folks. I know where I went wrong, but please tell me if I have hope so I can prepare.

i bought one batch of21 off eBay, and one batch of 9 from a farmer I follow on Instagram. Well, as luck would have it, they arrived exactly a week apart from each other. The farmer’s on the 4th, the eBays on the 10th.
My first error was the incubator. I just wanted something simple and small, but trusted a model that was known for being a fluke. Those stupid... 7 egg ones that are two wet and fluctuate. Well, I quickly returned and replaced them with a better model that could fit all my eggs anyway, and an automatic turner. But the 9 batch had been incubating in the bad incubator for 7 days already. The 21 batch, only about two days.

Otherwise I have done my utmost to keep them secure and taken care of them. On day 12, I floated the 9 batch. All floated, but some more than others and I hear that’s no good.

It is now day 15 and I am TERRIFIED none of them will hatch, and that they were too humid too early on due to my blunder of not checking reviews and they died.
In addition, I am worried that due to being a week apart and sharing an incubator, the 21 batch will get to humid and perish as well.

Did I ruin 30 quail eggs?

 

[Chicalina]

I would say stop candling and definitely don't float test again (it can drown them as eggshells are porous and also take in bacteria). Just leave them be! I know how hard that is. Wait until 3 or 4 days post usual hatch day before giving up on any. There is nothing worse than tossing an egg, or breaking it open only to find you had a viable chick you've now killed.

 

[Peskypigeon]

They’re hatching!!! One baby is out and healthy, peeping at the others. Another is wriggling, and one is zipping? Oh my god I’m in love

 

[Peskypigeon]

Recandled my second batch. They look amazing! I will post pictures, but they’re looking much more positive than the first batch ever did. I even think the little grey egg I was worried about has shown some growth.

 

[Peskypigeon]

Grey egg is... scary. It’s seeping something brown through the shell, and is very much not alive anymore. I pulled it. I also pulled one that was clearly milky and underdeveloped compared to the others.

There are now 6 eggs in the incubator, but 5 of them look REALLY good for day 15. They all look like the attached image (which is chickens, but still) which is from another BYC thread. Let’s hope for all 5 littles...!

Normally I wouldn’t candle so much, I just needed to see them in complete darkness to identify the airsac and be sure of what I had seen earlier. Now, I will refill the water and not touch them until they hatch.

 

[leia_and_friends]

YAY! So glad you got some cute little hatchlings! I've never done quails, but the chicks must be absolutely tiny!

 

[Peskypigeon]

Some better pictures! Upon further inspection, Kazuko is most definitely a type of silver. Not sure how light or dark, or boy or girl, but..!

 

[JaeG]

Don't rely on the float test - it's a highly inaccurate way of testing eggs. Many people have thought their eggs were dead after floating them, only to do an eggtopsy and find the chick was actually alive, but once you open that egg it cannot survive.

I incubated my own quail eggs, Kings and Coturnix, at a high humidity (I'm talking 70-80%) the whole way through incubation (my climate is very humid). From memory I only lost the very odd one. Shipped eggs are more difficult to hatch as the journey they have had to you dictates how successful you'll be.

 

[Peskypigeon]

Okay, good to know. I know the first incubator tried to cook them, hence so many didn’t make it even if they would have developed. Today is day 16. The 24th would be day 19 for them, but we only had one brief temperature dip. It’s been hot here otherwise and this incubator keeps it fairly stable aside from being still air and me having to wrap blankets around to keep half of it from getting too cold (the 16 batch was on that side but still developed well it seems).
I don’t think anybirdie has externally pipped, but I think I kept the Too Dark To See Inside egg in there as well just in case. It did feel heavy, but maybe it was just my imagination.

 

[Xouie]

Can you candle quail eggs? Floating is dangerous and ineffective.

Overall yes, they can be candled, but because of their size and that many button eggs are very dark it tends to be difficult to get a good look.