broody hen?

[deadeye]

im new to quail raising and i have a newby question. lately i have been noticing when i go to get the eggs out of my pen they have been put in a pile. i have a box attached to my regular pen that has wood chips in it and i have seen many times that all my eggs will be in a cleared out spot in the wood chips. i have five coturnix hens and normaly all five eggs will be in the pile. in fact the wood chips is the only place the birds will lay. except for one i found buried in their sand box. most of the birds like to hang out in the box and when i come around they get all excited and run around so i have yet to see one actualy laying on the eggs. i was just curious if this was something that is common and weather or not i should leave the eggs alone. ive read through alot of post on here but havent found anything about this yet.

 

[Whittni]

It is difficult to get quail to go broody. Most people just collect the eggs and sell them or hatch them.

 

[deadeye]

yesterday i just happened to watch one of my hens rolling all the eggs with her beak into one pile and then lay on them. i ended up just taking the eggs anyway. im curious if anyone else has experience with this? will she actualy stick with them till they hatch or do they normaly abandon the eggs? like i said im a newby. should i leave the eggs there?

 

[qlicer49]

yesterday i just happened to watch one of my hens rolling all the eggs with her beak into one pile and then lay on them. i ended up just taking the eggs anyway. im curious if anyone else has experience with this? will she actualy stick with them till they hatch or do they normaly abandon the eggs? like i said im a newby. should i leave the eggs there?

I would leave the eggs there just to see how it goes, but if you've had them out for a while the eggs aren't good anymore.

 

[deadeye]

this is a every day occurence. i take the eggs out and the next day a new batch is in a pile. ill probably leave todays eggs in the pile and see what happens.

 

[flg8r]

How about a broody roo? No joke one of mine is sitting on the eggs half the time I go to get them.

 

[qlicer49]

How about a broody roo? No joke one of mine is sitting on the eggs half the time I go to get them. :/

Never heard of a rooster sitting on eggs besides like flight birds. Pics?

 

[flg8r]

I'll try to get a pic tonight. He's a tuxedo but definitely male. I think maybe he's just a bit weird lol.

 

[GrandmaBird]

My male button would sit on the eggs when the hen got off to eat and drink. It might have something to do with the weather as I noticed it when we had cooler days. If you want to hatch some out you could just leave them for a few days assuming you have a roo in with the hens, they should be viable for 7 days or so then the hatch rate goes way down. Other wise remove them and toss them or eat them or boil them and feed them back to the birds, shell and all, ground up.