Greendale_Quails
Hatching
- Jul 15, 2020
- 2
- 1
- 8
Hi, First time poster here.
Recently decided I wanted to try incubating some Quail Eggs.
Bought a relatively inexpensive 24 egg digital, automatic incubator.
I have 4 coturnix quail I received from a friend, 1 male and 3 female.
11 eggs (no older than 7 days) wen into the incubator once the temperature and humidity readings were right (37.5c and 60% humidity(wet bulb))
Candled the eggs on day 6, 5 of them were showing signs of fertilization with red blood vessels visible (struggled to candle some due to dark coloured eggs).
Locked the eggs down on day 15 and increased the humidity to 70%, disposed of 4 eggs that were very obviously no fertile.
Fast forward to when hatching day was supposed to be (day 17,18 or 19) no signs of life from the eggs, tried candling them again with little information gained.
Read around on this frum and decided to give them another 2 days, still with no success.
Did egg autopsy on day 22, of the 6 remaining eggs:
-1 was infertile
-2 had small fetuses inside but had obviously died early in development.
-the remaining 3 had fully formed chicks inside that were dead , the chicks were feathered, had hard beaks but hadn’t absorbed all of the yolk sac. The membrane also seemed very thick and was tightly wrapped around the chicks.
I decided to test the in-built thermometer on the incubator to see if that was an issue, and it was!
It was reading 3.5 degrees celsius lower than it was inside the incubator, meaning it was 41 degrees celcius inside
Being a fan forced incubator with a wet bulb hygrometer, I assume that lower temperature reading also means the humidity was off as well?
So after adjusting the temperature in the incubator, i'm ready (with significant anxiety) to try again.
Does it sound like im on the right track? Anything else i need to adjust before trying again?
Thanks
Recently decided I wanted to try incubating some Quail Eggs.
Bought a relatively inexpensive 24 egg digital, automatic incubator.
I have 4 coturnix quail I received from a friend, 1 male and 3 female.
11 eggs (no older than 7 days) wen into the incubator once the temperature and humidity readings were right (37.5c and 60% humidity(wet bulb))
Candled the eggs on day 6, 5 of them were showing signs of fertilization with red blood vessels visible (struggled to candle some due to dark coloured eggs).
Locked the eggs down on day 15 and increased the humidity to 70%, disposed of 4 eggs that were very obviously no fertile.
Fast forward to when hatching day was supposed to be (day 17,18 or 19) no signs of life from the eggs, tried candling them again with little information gained.
Read around on this frum and decided to give them another 2 days, still with no success.
Did egg autopsy on day 22, of the 6 remaining eggs:
-1 was infertile
-2 had small fetuses inside but had obviously died early in development.
-the remaining 3 had fully formed chicks inside that were dead , the chicks were feathered, had hard beaks but hadn’t absorbed all of the yolk sac. The membrane also seemed very thick and was tightly wrapped around the chicks.
I decided to test the in-built thermometer on the incubator to see if that was an issue, and it was!
It was reading 3.5 degrees celsius lower than it was inside the incubator, meaning it was 41 degrees celcius inside
Being a fan forced incubator with a wet bulb hygrometer, I assume that lower temperature reading also means the humidity was off as well?
So after adjusting the temperature in the incubator, i'm ready (with significant anxiety) to try again.
Does it sound like im on the right track? Anything else i need to adjust before trying again?
Thanks