Big Flop, looking for recommendations.

[northernlivie]

Hi All, Looking for recommendations for incubators. A very sad story. I hatched my first Coturnix Quail. The results were miserable. I set 25 eggs and only 6 hatched. One had deformed eyes and was an albino English White. It could not see so could not eat, drink and would spin in a circle then plop over. I had to have it euthanized. Ugh.

The eggs were shipped from two Provinces over in a cut out foam holder. It looked like 13 eggs were viable at day 15. The rest did nothing at all which was to be expected after shipping I guess. Today is day 20 and the remaining 7 eggs have done nothing. No sign of life. Leaving them in for 4 more days to be sure.

The incubator appears to have hot and cold spots. My husband used a professional heat camera from work (the kind they use to see heat from helicopters) and the lower left corner is really hot while the upper right is so cold, only 93.9! Even though the thermometers I put inside read fine everywhere.

What are you recommendations for incubators?

Mine is obviously a flop! So sad and frustrated as the eggs cost quite a lot to have sent and I was really looking forward to my quail.

****The five babies I have are adorable, lively and beautiful. I did have to hand feed the only remaining English White 3x before it started eating and drinking on its own. The pastels were totally fine.

One English White. Would you say he/she is albino too or not?

Four German Pastels each different.

Thank you so much everyone!

Liv.

 

[IT Farmer]

What king of incubator do you currently have? If your temperature is not consistent throughout the incubator then it sounds like you don't enough air circulation within the incubator.

GQF makes really good incubators. I have one of there cabinet models and would highly recommend them to anyone. If you are looking for something a bit smaller and less expensive then they offer the smaller Styrofoam ones that have automatic turner trays I believe.

https://www.gqfmfg.com/

Link to their website above.

 

[shrimpsilkies]

That chick isn’t an English White (English white typically have a dark spot and aren’t albino), it’s probably SSC silver collection like some of your other birds. Some of the pastels appear to be silver and that silver line is known to produce leucistic and albino chicks, I had gotten one of each (leucy had blue eyes, very weak bones but survived to adulthood, albino was totally blind with bulging eyes and had to be put down). I hope it does well for you, if it’s eating that’s a very good sign. Is it blind?

 

[northernlivie]

What king of incubator do you currently have? If your temperature is not consistent throughout the incubator then it sounds like you don't enough air circulation within the incubator.

GQF makes really good incubators. I have one of there cabinet models and would highly recommend them to anyone. If you are looking for something a bit smaller and less expensive then they offer the smaller Styrofoam ones that have automatic turner trays I believe.

https://www.gqfmfg.com/

Link to their website above.

Thank you so much. It is just a generic one that 12 chicken eggs. But it is from Amazon.

 

[northernlivie]

That chick isn’t an English White (English white typically have a dark spot and aren’t albino), it’s probably SSC silver collection like some of your other birds. Some of the pastels appear to be silver and that silver line is known to produce leucistic and albino chicks, I had gotten one of each (leucy had blue eyes, very weak bones but survived to adulthood, albino was totally blind with bulging eyes and had to be put down). I hope it does well for you, if it’s eating that’s a very good sign. Is it blind?

Sorry I should have added in that I bought a dozen English White eggs from a very reputable breeder (so added disappointment poor results) and they are marked with a W.
The German Pastels were all marked GP.
So two Ws hatched. The one pictured and the one that died. The remaining 4 hatched from GP eggs.

The one White that looks fine is eating, drinking and otherwise being a baby quail. Quirky and cute personality. Maybe they are not really English White?

 

[IT Farmer]

Look at getting one from GQF. They probably make the best there is for small scale hatching. Plus they sale replacement parts for the products in case something ever needs replacing down the road.

 

[CovidtimeQuail]

My story is almost identical. I ended up retrofitting the incubator with a game-console type fan. So that others could benefit from this experience, I posted an article here:

Retrofitting a (Little Giant) still air incubator

In hindsight, I wish I had a better incubator. However, now that this new tweak works, I don't think I'll be trading it in. (P.S. The hatch rate could also be adversely affected by having to have shipped the eggs.)

 

[northernlivie]

Look at getting one from GQF. They probably make the best there is for small scale hatching. Plus they sale replacement parts for the products in case something ever needs replacing down the road.

Thank you! Just looked but I would need a Canadian Site.

 

[northernlivie]

My story is almost identical. I ended up retrofitting the incubator with a game-console type fan. So that others could benefit from this experience, I posted an article here:

Retrofitting a (Little Giant) still air incubator

In hindsight, I wish I had a better incubator. However, now that this new tweak works, I don't think I'll be trading it in. (P.S. The hatch rate could also be adversely affected by having to have shipped the eggs.)

Oh no! I am so sorry to hear you had some bad results too!

Thank you for the tweak idea.

 

[northernlivie]

What king of incubator do you currently have? If your temperature is not consistent throughout the incubator then it sounds like you don't enough air circulation within the incubator.

GQF makes really good incubators. I have one of there cabinet models and would highly recommend them to anyone. If you are looking for something a bit smaller and less expensive then they offer the smaller Styrofoam ones that have automatic turner trays I believe.

https://www.gqfmfg.com/

Link to their website above.

Oh no! The site is USA. Is there a Canadian one?