Chicken incubating quail eggs.

[Del1977]

One of our golden lace hens is broody...again! We have 3 of this breed and when one went broody we put 9 fertile quail eggs under her to see if she would hatch them. Anyway, she ate one egg a day until they were all gone!

This time, we put 4 fertile quail eggs under this hen and she sat for 6 days without harming the eggs. Then for some reason I discovered her off them. Told my daughter who ran out to get them stating there were still warm and moist feeling so she popped them in out mini bator. Lockdown is this coming Sunday so she is itching to know if we will see any wobbling, and if any will hatch. We will be amazed if they do.

Anyone else had hens hatching quail eggs or a similar experience?

 

[Yorkshire Coop]

There is every chance they will hatch as you have got them in the incubator. I've hatched quail in the incubator but not with a hen I'm afraid.

Hope you have a great hatch, quail are so cute when they hatch

 

[MeepBeep]

Told my daughter who ran out to get them stating there were still warm and moist feeling so she popped them in out mini bator.

Just for future reference, f they were still warm to the touch, the hen was likely just taking a small break and would have returned, eggs cool back to room temp and won't feel warm to the touch fairly quickly...

Anyway people have hatched eggs that have been 'cooled' for 24+ hours so chances are good they will hatch...

 

[Del1977]

There is every chance they will hatch as you have got them in the incubator. I've hatched quail in the incubator but not with a hen I'm afraid.

Hope you have a great hatch, quail are so cute when they hatch

I've hatched quail in the incubator several times and they certainly are super cute but never ones that started under a hen first. Have 11 that are a week old today.

Just for future reference, f they were still warm to the touch, the hen was likely just taking a small break and would have returned, eggs cool back to room temp and won't feel warm to the touch fairly quickly...

Anyway people have hatched eggs that have been 'cooled' for 24+ hours so chances are good they will hatch...

You could very well be right about that as when I checked again a couple of hours later she was back on the nest, sitting on nothing! Panicked when I saw her off them and thought she had aborted mission. Didn't want 6 day old embryos dying from lack of attention! Two more days until lockdown and they might give us a wobble!!! Three out of four feel heavier than the other one so fingers crossed.

 

[MeepBeep]

Three out of four feel heavier than the other one so fingers crossed.

Eggs should actually lose about 12-13% of their weight as they develop...

 

[Del1977]

Oh?! Might be the opposite to what we are expecting then.

 

[Calla567]

All 5 of my quail were incubated by my silkie chicken. I removed them when they peeped holes out just to be safe

 

[JaeG]

A chicken can hatch them but it's hard work to get her to care for them and have them survive. Chicken hens are a lot more active than a quail hen in that critical first week, and the difference usually leads to squashed chicks or chicks that get cold and cannot find their way back to their 'mother'. Quail hens are a lot more attentive to the cries of "I'm cold" than a chicken hen who furiously searches for food. A quail cock should also help out, rounding up stragglers while the hen sits with the main bunch of babies.

Quail chicks will climb right up under a hens wings and with softer feathered breeds (especially silkies) quail chicks often become tangled in the soft feathers and strangle themselves.

Diseases are another concern. Quail are prone to catching Coryza from chickens who can carry that disease while showing no symptoms. It's a disease we don't have in New Zealand so I was able to try hatching quail eggs under bantams (large fowl breeds are too big).

We had an OEGB hatch 2 quail chicks. By 3 weeks old they no longer needed her, and during the first week we had to grab the chicks every time she got the urge to get up and scratch about. It was a lot of work! Since then we've used two other bantams as incubators but brooded the chicks ourselves.