Effect of relative humidity on incubation of Japanese quail eggs

[Rozzie]

Here's a scholarly research paper I found online about humidity in Coturnix incubations:

http://www.lrrd.org/lrrd21/3/roma21038.htm

I'll cut/paste the abstract here, but not the article, since that would violate copyright:

"Abstract

This research aimed to verify the effect of relative humidity during incubation of Japanese quail eggs on hatchability, egg weight loss, hatch weight, and embryo mortality. A total of 150 Japanese quails (Coturnix japonica) were used for egg collections. The eggs were divided into three experimental groups: low humidity group (36.05±6.06% RH; n=100), intermediate humidity group (52.25±4.99% RH; n=100) and high humidity group (76.50±4.44% RH; n=100). Each group of eggs was incubated in an individual incubator, according to its experimental relative humidity during incubation. Incubation process was done by automatic incubators with temperature of 37.5°C, and egg turning every 30 minutes. At the 15th day of incubation (360h) egg turning was stopped and the eggs were transferred to the hatcher that maintained the same temperature and relative humidity until hatch. All eggs were weighted on 1st, 5th, 10th, and 15th day of incubation and quail chicks at hatch.



Japanese quail eggs incubated at the lower humidity presented the highest level of hatchability (79%) compared to intermediate and high humidities. Egg weight loss was respectively 11.96%, 8.94%, and 4.89% for low, intermediate and high humidity groups. Futhemore, the weight at hatch was influenced by the different incubational humidities. Embryo mortality presented no statistical difference among the different humidity treatments."

 

[95yj]

I've read all kinds of things about incubating quail eggs, and i'v found that they'll hatch pretty much no matter what. I tried to incubate a batch of forty in a still air with the eggs in wooden racks, instead of turning the forty something eggs individualy three times a day i just titled the rack every time i was supposed to flip the eggs. The funny thing about still air incubators is that you get a vertical thermal gradient, meaning that the incubator is cooler at the top than the bottom, by alot apparently. I unfortunately forgot about this until about 1/2 way through the process, so in short the eggs were being flipped from the perfect 99.5 at the top of the rack to 95 at the bottom three times a day. I figured i'd keep going and see what happens, and low and behold its day 18 and stuff is starting to hatch. I also didn't add any water and went with the "dry hatch" technique