After reading a thread where DC said he's heard of but never actually known a chicken to hatch quail eggs I figured I'd give it a try. I had a surplus of quail eggs and a broody bantam hen that wasn't doing anything but wasting time sitting on a nest and eating up that expensive feed. I figured there was no reason it shouldn't work, but I've never heard of anybody doing it either.
The quail eggs were a mixture of small ones in the 8-9 gram range and some eggs from some 9 week old quail hens that had just started laying and I doubted the fertitily of, i.e. cull eggs that I ordinarily feed to the cats instead of wasting time & space in the incubator. So I wasn't expecting any great results, really I wasn't expecting much.
The hen was a large mutt bantam weighing about 2+ lbs and 10 months old. It was her first time being broody so being she never raised chicks before. I figured that was a plus because she wouldn't think bumble bee size chicks was anything unusual and not reject or kill them if they did hatch. There is a rooster in the pen, a game cock that's experienced with chicks and is a good broody rooster. I booted the other 3 hens from the pen so they wouldn't disturb the nest while laying their eggs each day.
Sorry about the crappy pictures but all I have is an antique cell phone as a camera. I splattered my expensive Nikkon all over I-40 outside of Memphis a while back while operating my motorcycle with 1 hand and my camera with the other.
Here's the chicken on the nest. It's a laying nest, not a good incubating nest so I needed to improve it a little bit to increase my chances of success. I do this will all my broody hens when I let them hatch eggs.
I piled straw around the hen to create a deep soft bowl shaped nest.
She did some improvements of her own, I did not pile the straw on top of her, that was her doing.
This is what she was sitting on, a daily accumulation of eggs from the other 3 bantam hens in that pen. I was removing them each day because I don't need to hatch any more useless bantams.
I left her 1 chicken egg so she would remain loyal to the nest and installed 30 quail eggs.
I quick peek several days later. I figured the breakage rate would be high since my quail eggs have really thin shells but I didn't notice any breakage even though she kept the chicken egg on top of the quail eggs. I was going to remove the chicken egg after she became loyal to the clutch, but as usual I never got around to it.
We have quail chicks!
Several hours later the hatchlings (number uknown) are becoming active and scurrying about in the nest box. My concern is that will jump out the nest before the hen is ready and be unprotected against the elements or that the hen will jump out the nest with them and abandon the rest of the eggs.
It will be interesting to see if they bond with the hen or be aloof & independant like incubator quail are.
The quail eggs were a mixture of small ones in the 8-9 gram range and some eggs from some 9 week old quail hens that had just started laying and I doubted the fertitily of, i.e. cull eggs that I ordinarily feed to the cats instead of wasting time & space in the incubator. So I wasn't expecting any great results, really I wasn't expecting much.
The hen was a large mutt bantam weighing about 2+ lbs and 10 months old. It was her first time being broody so being she never raised chicks before. I figured that was a plus because she wouldn't think bumble bee size chicks was anything unusual and not reject or kill them if they did hatch. There is a rooster in the pen, a game cock that's experienced with chicks and is a good broody rooster. I booted the other 3 hens from the pen so they wouldn't disturb the nest while laying their eggs each day.
Sorry about the crappy pictures but all I have is an antique cell phone as a camera. I splattered my expensive Nikkon all over I-40 outside of Memphis a while back while operating my motorcycle with 1 hand and my camera with the other.
Here's the chicken on the nest. It's a laying nest, not a good incubating nest so I needed to improve it a little bit to increase my chances of success. I do this will all my broody hens when I let them hatch eggs.
I piled straw around the hen to create a deep soft bowl shaped nest.
She did some improvements of her own, I did not pile the straw on top of her, that was her doing.
This is what she was sitting on, a daily accumulation of eggs from the other 3 bantam hens in that pen. I was removing them each day because I don't need to hatch any more useless bantams.
I left her 1 chicken egg so she would remain loyal to the nest and installed 30 quail eggs.
I quick peek several days later. I figured the breakage rate would be high since my quail eggs have really thin shells but I didn't notice any breakage even though she kept the chicken egg on top of the quail eggs. I was going to remove the chicken egg after she became loyal to the clutch, but as usual I never got around to it.
We have quail chicks!
Several hours later the hatchlings (number uknown) are becoming active and scurrying about in the nest box. My concern is that will jump out the nest before the hen is ready and be unprotected against the elements or that the hen will jump out the nest with them and abandon the rest of the eggs.
It will be interesting to see if they bond with the hen or be aloof & independant like incubator quail are.
I am wanting to do this as well eventually when i can have a couple.bantyor silkie hens around for brooding 
