Coturnix Quail

[hacharlton]

I have one female Quail that is laying every day and a half. How long can I keep eggs before putting in the incubator. I do not want to just put a few in. I have 5 eggs now

 

[ozzie]

I've heard that once the egg gets past a week old it reduces hatchability but from memory quail seem to be quite hardy. I've got a similar problem, a friend's dad only has 1 bob white female and 1 male and he's given me 14 eggs so 7 of them are past the week old stage, but I've popped them in anyway. Thing about quail is that their incubation is faster than chickens so you really only have 17-18 days to wait.

I did pop them in together with some chicken eggs though - so it's not so empty looking in the bator. Also I think quail eggs are a lot smaller, so if you only have a few of them in a largish space, you might want to add some bottles of water as heat sinks.

ozzie

 

[kingpincray]

They can store for good 2 weeks if done properly. Keep them in the cool and keep them tilted in the opposite side once a day. I have even stored my bobwhite eggs for 20 days and it still developed.