I have a dozen coturnix in it right nowWelcome to the hatch-a-long!
I have never hatched quail, but I think quail go into lock down day 14, but I also think it depends on the breed of quail. I will tag @aliciaplus3, who I believe is hatching quail as well!
14 days is what I found. Good luck with them and can't wait to see the chicks!I have a dozen coturnix in it right now
biggest piece of advice now is to not pull anything before day 10 unless you CLEARLY see a blood ring.... give those babies every chance to surprise youHello. I also just discovered this thread, and thought I would join in as a newbie guaranteed-to-be-hatchaholic because I might need some help here. Long story short, I purchased 2 dozen eggs from a well-known hatchery (that I will not name) and was very disappointed in the overall condition of the majority of the eggs (8 breeds, which they even sent me the some wrong breeds instead of the ones I ordered, but at least they refunded my money for those eggs). I read through all the Sally Sunshine info on incubating, shipped eggs, etc. but was not expecting any of that to happen to these eggs.... Seeing an air sac float around like a level-bubble is very sad, especially for first timer. ANYWAY...
What I was not aware of at the time I had the eggs settled and getting ready to go into the incubator was that hatch day 21 will be on CHRISTMAS DAY!It's just me and my DH, and after the year that we have all had to deal with in one way or many, we could use some fluffy peeping babies hatching on Christmas. We have nowhere else to be but home celebrating and so this should be fun!
Unfortunately, I lost one of the Welsummer eggs (one of the floating level eggs) when a small piece of the shell stuck to the stationary turning rack from some fluid that had leaked out of the egg, and while the membrane wasn't broken, I decided not to take extreme measures which could endanger the rest of the hatch (exploding bacteria bomb?!) and removed the egg. Sadly, after I cracked it open to check, I think it was growing when I compared it to day 2 pics online (but it was still too risky to have left it in the bator). Aside from this one egg, as of today (day 3.5), they are all in the rotating racks in the incubators. Yes...incubator"S". Once I ordered the hatching eggs, I started saving/storing some of the prettier more likely to be fertile eggs from my existing flock (oldest hens and roo 8 months old) to add to the shipped eggs for hatch, but upon receipt of the shipped eggs and that mess, I realized that I was going to need to run 2 separate batches because of the "special needs" the shipped eggs were going to initially need, and then one thing led to another and I have BOTH incubators full of 79 eggs out of fear that I wont have any chicks hatch on/around Christmas!!! Basically, I've lost my damn mind here!!!Maybe there is such a thing as too much isolation after all! It never occurred to me at the time that I could have just eaten the other eggs I had collected up to that point seeing as how I made certain the stayed at 50-55 F and were rotated regularly. In my mind, they were already on the road to hatching. Brain fog??
Thankfully, I now have both Farm Innovator 4250 incubators running smoothly in the 100.0-100.5 F range at 50-55% humidity (multiple digital probes added). Although "Thing 2" (where the shipped eggs are incubating) has been maintaining 55% humidity for the past 24 hours. Looking back at my notes, the humidity started to rise a few hours before I discovered and removed the damaged/leaking Welsummer egg. I wonder why that is still higher a day later? There did not appear to be any leakage into the water well below. Yet another thing to keep an eye on! "Thing 1" has been running like a well oiled machine from the moment I got her temp calibrated correctly (well, adjusted anyway). Overall, this is a way more complicated and involved process than I had previously understood even though I read up on everything before hand. Perhaps I zoned out looking at all the black and white letters while daydreaming of teeny-tiny hatching fluffy peeping babies!
I did a sample egg-check throughout both incubators last night, more than half of the sample eggs did not appear to show any evidence of development (not fertilized was the most likely culprit from my flock, shipping damages more likely with the hatchery eggs); I had sort of expected this all things considered. I think only a handful of the 24 shipped eggs are going to grow, but hopefully I am totally wrong about them and they were saved by SS advice! I did go ahead an locate a local gal who has some BCM hatching eggs from absolutely stunning examples of the breed that I am going to pick up this weekend, so I am more than likely going to have one long staggered hatch probably lasting about a week or so (from Christmas through New Years). Go big or go home, right?? Maybe you should just go ahead and label this post "What NOT to do on your first attempt to incubate/hatch chicken eggs." But who doesn't like a good old fashion challenge?
Hopefully I will be able to learn a lot and pass along some helpful advice to others down the road (beyond "Do NOT try to hatch 80 eggs your first time around!!")
Jeannie
How do you tell if it is a bad air cell?
Hello. I also just discovered this thread, and thought I would join in as a newbie guaranteed-to-be-hatchaholic because I might need some help here. Long story short, I purchased 2 dozen eggs from a well-known hatchery (that I will not name) and was very disappointed in the overall condition of the majority of the eggs (8 breeds, which they even sent me the some wrong breeds instead of the ones I ordered, but at least they refunded my money for those eggs). I read through all the Sally Sunshine info on incubating, shipped eggs, etc. but was not expecting any of that to happen to these eggs.... Seeing an air sac float around like a level-bubble is very sad, especially for first timer. ANYWAY...
What I was not aware of at the time I had the eggs settled and getting ready to go into the incubator was that hatch day 21 will be on CHRISTMAS DAY!
Unfortunately, I lost one of the Welsummer eggs (one of the floating level eggs) when a small piece of the shell stuck to the stationary turning rack from some fluid that had leaked out of the egg, and while the membrane wasn't broken, I decided not to take extreme measures which could endanger the rest of the hatch (exploding bacteria bomb?!) and removed the egg. Sadly, after I cracked it open to check, I think it was growing when I compared it to day 2 pics online (but it was still too risky to have left it in the bator). Aside from this one egg, as of today (day 3.5), they are all in the rotating racks in the incubators. Yes...incubator"S". Once I ordered the hatching eggs, I started saving/storing some of the prettier more likely to be fertile eggs from my existing flock (oldest hens and roo 8 months old) to add to the shipped eggs for hatch, but upon receipt of the shipped eggs and that mess, I realized that I was going to need to run 2 separate batches because of the "special needs" the shipped eggs were going to initially need, and then one thing led to another and I have BOTH incubators full of 79 eggs out of fear that I wont have any chicks hatch on/around Christmas!!! Basically, I've lost my damn mind here!!!
Thankfully, I now have both Farm Innovator 4250 incubators running smoothly in the 100.0-100.5 F range at 50-55% humidity (multiple digital probes added). Although "Thing 2" (where the shipped eggs are incubating) has been maintaining 55% humidity for the past 24 hours. Looking back at my notes, the humidity started to rise a few hours before I discovered and removed the damaged/leaking Welsummer egg. I wonder why that is still higher a day later? There did not appear to be any leakage into the water well below. Yet another thing to keep an eye on! "Thing 1" has been running like a well oiled machine from the moment I got her temp calibrated correctly (well, adjusted anyway). Overall, this is a way more complicated and involved process than I had previously understood even though I read up on everything before hand. Perhaps I zoned out looking at all the black and white letters while daydreaming of teeny-tiny hatching fluffy peeping babies!
I did a sample egg-check throughout both incubators last night, more than half of the sample eggs did not appear to show any evidence of development (not fertilized was the most likely culprit from my flock, shipping damages more likely with the hatchery eggs); I had sort of expected this all things considered. I think only a handful of the 24 shipped eggs are going to grow, but hopefully I am totally wrong about them and they were saved by SS advice! I did go ahead an locate a local gal who has some BCM hatching eggs from absolutely stunning examples of the breed that I am going to pick up this weekend, so I am more than likely going to have one long staggered hatch probably lasting about a week or so (from Christmas through New Years). Go big or go home, right?? Maybe you should just go ahead and label this post "What NOT to do on your first attempt to incubate/hatch chicken eggs." But who doesn't like a good old fashion challenge?
Hopefully I will be able to learn a lot and pass along some helpful advice to others down the road (beyond "Do NOT try to hatch 80 eggs your first time around!!")
Jeannie
find=build right???? oh wait that is in my world.So just hatched two more blues. Third one in this batch will probably hatch later today. Photo attached not the best photo but through an incubator window, so there you go.
Two of my buyers have changed their minds, it happens! Re-posted on craigslist hoping to generate some more interest.
I have six more eggs in various stages of development from day 10 through day 16.
In addition to this the 10 I set for Christmas day. Here on day four all of these are developing except one which appears to be infertile.
So if I don’t sell any of these little guys I will have 21 chicks! Hopefully I’ll find some place to put them.
