When I found this forum I first decided I'd just get a couple of bantam to raise to see what chicks are like, despite the fact that I live in town. 14 bantams arrive from Ideal right around Thanksgiving. Kept reading the post here and decided to build an incubator, "just to see if I could." I'll wait to spring to hatch anything, right? NO! just to test my new homemade incubator, think I"ll try to hatch a few button quail--first batch of eggs the thermostat went haywire and I had to discard them. Pretty down with the whole process but got another batch of eggs after I reworked the thermo. Saturday evening Dec 17 6:30 pm I put them in and started my countdown. Again I had problems with temp spikes but this time I let them stay in incubator since I had nothing else in mind. According to my calculation they should hatch Jan 2--which came and went. Yesterday morning I happen to walk by the incu and notice the temp reading of 103 so without looking I just turned the thing off and walked out. About an hour later my wife woke me up YELLING "you've got a baby!!"
Sure enough there in that 70 degree incubator lay one teeny-tiny quail chick almost not moving!! Plugged bator in and as it warmed so did the chick!! 2:20 am today I have 7 total and more coming.
Just a side bar on this. We needed this assurance that life continues in our family yesterday. My 12 year old grandson was accidentally shot by his father the day after Christmas and there is no hope for recovery, we're just waiting. Small, seemingly insignificant, things like tiny eggs coming to life do so much to comfort at times like this.
Sure enough there in that 70 degree incubator lay one teeny-tiny quail chick almost not moving!! Plugged bator in and as it warmed so did the chick!! 2:20 am today I have 7 total and more coming.
Just a side bar on this. We needed this assurance that life continues in our family yesterday. My 12 year old grandson was accidentally shot by his father the day after Christmas and there is no hope for recovery, we're just waiting. Small, seemingly insignificant, things like tiny eggs coming to life do so much to comfort at times like this.
