Are these eggs going to hatch?

[Alaska & Dakota]

Hi so I got my two button quail about 3 months ago, I have one female-pure white, and one male who is that natural camouflage brown colour (I’m not great with terminology, sorry). They live indoors and we recently moved them to a location with more light and my female started laying one egg a day and she now has laid 6 eggs. I was initially going to take them out and pop them in the fridge but then I realized that her and the male have been rolling them every once in a while and I’ve heard of that being a way to make sure the chick inside grows properly, so does that mean that we are going to be having some babies soon? If so, do I need to invest in an incubator or will she take care of them herself? Please tell me anything you think would be useful because I’m new to this egg thing and I don’t know what I’m doing haha oops..

 

[junebuggena]

If she's not broody (sitting on the eggs day and night) then those eggs are not going to ever hatch. Eggs do not spontaneously develop and hatch. They must be incubated, either by a broody or by an incubator for them to turn into babies.

 

[BYC910]

Welcome to BYC is the hen setting on the eggs , Even through I'm pretty sure she couldn't cover 16 eggs well. If you want them to hatch then she has to sit on them or you need to get an incubator . Everybody got to start somewhere

 

[Welshies]

x2 on the above.

 

[DK newbie]

In my experience, if they are moving the eggs around the hen is not likely to go broody. Other people have other experiences - some say they lay an egg here and there and then gather them all in one nest to start incubating them. But when mine go broody, they always lay all of the eggs in the same nest, then go broody. Or don't go broody.. Mine seem to have a very strong brooding instinct, some people have buttons for years and never have one go broody. I've had one hatch at least 4 batches of chicks last year, she's a baby machine..

If you want yours to have chicks, give them a few good places to hide - a fake plant covering a corner of the cage works well - and perhaps a little hay/dry grass in or very near this corner. You can probably safely remove the current eggs - I don't think she's likely to incubate them - but if she starts laying in the nest corner, I'd leave the eggs alone until she has about 10. If she hasn't gone broody by then, you can remove the eggs - she can't cover that many anyway and the oldest ones are likely becoming too old to hatch. Then you can let her start over and see if she goes broody on the next clutch.