Diagnosing quail eggs that didn't develop

[flickerfarkle]

Other than not being fertilized, what might cause cotournix eggs to show no sign of an embryo after incubation?

I bought the eggs locally and none had been laid more than 48 hours before I picked them up. On the trip home I handled them like, well, ... eggs ... and within 24 hours they were in the incubator. So they were handled as gingerly as humanly possible and in the incubator in less than four days since being laid.

40% failed to hatch, which I figure isn't horrible for a first-time effort, but it obviously leaves room for improvement. And improve is what I hope to do, in part by determining what went wrong with the non-hatchers.

When 24 hours had passed with no more hatchings I took the eggs that remained, checked to see if I could feel or hear anything moving inside, then opened them to examine the contents. There was no sign of an embryo developing in about 2/3rds of those eggs.

Since that represents the largest portion of the eggs that failed to hatch, I'm hoping to learn #1 all the reasons why that would happen. For starters, how common is it to get unfertilized eggs from a (small business) hatchery? #2, what factors that I can control that might have prevented the embryo developing?

And I realize this might not be "knowable' (especially since I tried candling a few going from incubation to lock-down, and couldn't tell heads from tails), but #3, how common is it for fertilized eggs just not to develop?

 

[Debbie292d]

1: There can always be an unfertilized egg but I'd say 1 per dozen should be the worst it gets.

2: If you have an incubator with a fan in it, then incubator temperature and humidity are the two things left. Temp should be 99.5F and humidity 40-50 until lockdown, then 65-70%.

3: Fertilized eggs should all at least start developing. There can be any number of reasons why they don't make it past the first week, but nothing except the health of the hen can explain why some fertilized will develop and others won't. That's just too strange.

 

[Huntmaster]

2: If you have an incubator with a fan in it, then incubator temperature and humidity are the two things left. Temp should be 99.5F and humidity 40-50 until lockdown, then 65-70%.

If it is Coturnix Quail, that is a high humidity % for incubating and hatching. My Coturnix do best at 30-35% humidity for incubation and 50-55% for hatching.

 

[Debbie292d]

If it is Coturnix Quail, that is a high humidity % for incubating and hatching. My Coturnix do best at 30-35% humidity for incubation and 50-55% for hatching.

I throw my neighbor's in with my silkies in the incubator and almost all hatch so that's why I went with it. Three times thus far. The first time was a hoot as I had no idea how fast those little buggers can run around that incubator!!!