Fertility in young quail

[glewis121]

I have some coturnix that are 7 and a half weeks old and have been laying now for almost a week. They are under 14 hours of light in my coop.

I was wondering when a good time to start incubating these would be. I am relatively new at quail and have incubated several times with eggs from my mature breeders.

I have seen the males "doing their thing" to the females or so it appears and it looks like they are getting better at it...

How long should I wait to incubate eggs from these young quail with a decent hatch rate?

Thanks!

 

[Crazyland]

Thanks for posting this as it was along the lines of my question. I am just going to watch your post to see what others have to say.

My male has been chasing down my female a lot lately. She just hasn't submitted.
He also just started to crow!

The weather better warm up soon so I can move them outside and let them have some privacy.

Mine are just a tad younger than yours.

 

[glewis121]

I know cant wait for it to get warm although mine are ok in the coop even when the temp drops into the 20's they have been fine!

Mine are crowing like crazy! Once one starts they all go crazy!!

 

[JJMR794]

Coturnix are usually as fertile as they are ever gonna be at the age they start laying. In extreme age fertility may drop some, but mostly just egg production decreases. They've been at it for a week or more so my guess is that the ladds have figured it out by now.

Unfortunately most of us have a difficult time candling the coturnix eggs, so it's not as tho you could set them and candle in a a few days to a week--- i usually just set them and forget them until hatch time... i have many 1st time layers that are quite fertile right off the bat! Worse case scenario you waste some bator space for 2 1/2 wks....