First time hatching quail eggs. Need help.

[Louisianahomegrown]

First time ever with quail eggs. I have several that hatched around 4 or 5 this morning. Around 3 pm I took the plugs out of the incubator to let those dry off, however I still have a couple trying to hatch. Somebody gave me around hundred or so eggs and I divided them up into two incubators. One is the still air Hova-Bator incubator a and the other a Little Giant fan type incubator. Well the ones in the Hova-Bator are hatching and the ones in the Little Giant have done nothing. We lost power for 14 hours yesterday and both incubators went down to 70 degrees before we finally decided to get the generator started. I didn't expect any to hatch after the loss of electricity and the incubators being without power for over 4 hours. Question the chicks are not dry so when do I need to take them out of the incubator? Can I dry them myself?

 

[chrishel]

It's my understanding that you should keep them in the incubator for 24 hours until they are completely dry. Very hard to do since they are so cute! Also, keep the humidity up so your chicks that are still hatching don't get "shrink wrapped" in the shells.

The chicks will play soccer with the hatching eggs, but it doesn't really affect the hatch.

Keep being patient. It's interesting to hear about the differences in the incubators. Perhaps the LG with the fan cooled down quicker than the still air when your power went out.

 

[Louisianahomegrown]

Thanks, I was thinking I needed to pull them out. Some will be 24 hours old around 4 or 5 in the morning.

 

[FenDruadin]

I tend to pull babies twice a day--right before bed, any that are dry enough, and then again after breakfast, any that are dry enough. I don't try to calculate exactly 24 hours. I find that leaving them in the incubator much longer than 12 hours leads to trouble-they fall asleep on top of eggs and prevent them coming out, they reach up and peck at the heat element, and so on. By clearing them out every 12 hours, you prevent a lot of issues that arise from a bator full of just-hatched babies. This also means that you are only opening the bator twice a day, which helps keep that humidity up.

It's sad about the Little Giant--I'd want to open it up and see if you can figure out what's going on. Is the temp too low? Too high? Remember that it needs to be slightly higher in a still air incubator. Can you candle and see if they're still squirming in there? Have they pipped internally?

Temp is less important in the latter days of incubation because the chicks start generating their own heat--in fact, it's worse to *overheat* than to underheat, but I would still expect some deaths from the 70 degree temps. The Little Giant is less well insulated than the Hova-bator, so it's likely that they were cold for longer.

Congrats on the babies so far! Have fun.

 

[Louisianahomegrown]

The Little Giant eggs started hatching the next day and I pulled three sets of chicks that day and I've pulled two sets today. All together I have maybe 60 plus chicks. I've had some die though. I wish I had read up on them before I put them in the incubators because I've had alot of them get hung in the wire. Also to be honest I went several days with only turning them once a day. Another thing I did was spray the eggs with water every time I opened them to roll them and when I took the chicks out. Don't know if that made any difference but I think I have had a good hatch. I still have some trying to break their shells as we speak.

 

[FenDruadin]

Congrats on a great hatch! We all have to live and learn--next time you'll be able to avoid the mistakes of this time.

Good luck on the rest of the hatch!