Hatching Time discrepancy please help

[Woodlebrain]

Good Evening All, I am new to this site. We previously had a few pet Coturnix (we were teaching our young sons about where our food (eggs) come from. We loved the little gals (& little guy) but alas they went to live on a free range hobby farm (better than our apartment). Our next life lesson is hatching eggs.

Our very first bunch should arrive in the mail this Wed. or Thurs. They are 15 in total, a mix of Japanese Coturnix & Texas A&M. I have made my own incubator out of our old 20 gal aquarium (still sorting out humidity & temp). To the point, I have been reading up obviously on how to go about successfully hatching. I read pretty much everywhere that Coturnix hatch in 17 days so need to stopped turning at day 14; however, the breeder I am getting the eggs from said all quail take 23 days & to stop turning at day 20. Is it best to follow what the breeder said (he knows something about his particular eggs we don't?) or follow the 17 day rule? Will it cause great harm/death to continue turning the eggs to the end? Any advise/opinions appreciated to get a successful hatch for our sons to experience.

Thank you

 

[Fat Daddy]

Hello, Coturnix and the A&M's are the same thing. I assume you mean brown coturnix and white coturnix. They hatch in 17-18 days.... The 23 days is for new world quail like bobs and valley ect... If the eggs have spots Like the ones below, they are coturnix and will hatch in 17-18 days. if they are white, or cream with very fine flecks, they are new world quail and will hatch in 23 days.... It will not be the end of the world if you keep turning till hatch.... but its easier for the chick to properly position its self to pip into the spot if his world is not changing several times a day....

 

[Woodlebrain]

thank you, my biggest concern is if I manage to injure or kill them by turning too long. I will try to pit a photo of the eggs when they arrive. Our former coturnix laid eggs that had a lot less brown than your photo. I take it there is also no differences between coturnix form Canada & the US, we are in BC & the eggs are coming over from Vancouver Island.

 

[Fat Daddy]

thank you, my biggest concern is if I manage to injure or kill them by turning too long. I will try to pit a photo of the eggs when they arrive. Our former coturnix laid eggs that had a lot less brown than your photo. I take it there is also no differences between coturnix form Canada & the US, we are in BC & the eggs are coming over from Vancouver Island.

You wont likely kill them turning too long. I have lost track of days in staggered hatches several times and had chicks hatch while riding the turners..... Never noticed much difference there. The biggest factor is raising the humidity the last few days. Chicks will tend to "shrink wrap" with humidity at lower
incubation levels. Yes many coturnix eggs have alot less brown on them than the ones I put up. I actually took that pic to show a friend 4 "first eggs" from a batch of birds less than 6 weeks old...... It was the first pic of cot eggs I had handy. Coturnix are coturnix either in Canada or the US same bird no matter where. You have a few colors we have trouble getting thou. Good luck with your birds, Bill

 

[Woodlebrain]

Argh! I finally got the temp. up & stabled but my humidity is stuck at 35% any suggestions. I have a bowl of water with rocks in it in my aquarium. When my temp was too low my humidity was too high (in the 80s) but now that I got the temp up my humidity is down at least I still have time to sort out before the eggs arrive.

 

[Invision]

My last hatch I tried dry incubating and it worked pretty well for me. I set 35 eggs and ended up with 29 chicks. Humidity (relative) was at 35-40% for 15 days, 60-65% on lock down. Stopped turning on day 15. These little birds are pretty hard to kill, and I even had a heck of a time getting my temp to stabilize, at one point it was 104 for a few hours and still ended up with good hatch rates.

Just remember not to expect anything more than 50% hatch rate from shipped eggs. Anything over that and your doing it right, anything under well that's just the luck of the draw.

 

[Woodlebrain]

that is reassuring I did get the humidity up, my temp stabilized, got up this morning & CRISIS!!! my 4yr old was trying to be a 'good boy' & unplugged the light that was left on over night! Luckily eggs aren't arrived yet but I'm having issues getting temp up again. I see pics of everyone having their eggs on top of wire, is this necessary? I just have a ribbed tea towel though I was thinking to change to paper towel.

 

[franklinstreetwest]

A note from my current hatching experience....I have a batch of coturnix quail that I set on March 3rd. They just started hatching Tuesday the 24th. There are two more that hatched late today, and 3 eggs that may yet hatch, from that batch. Depending on how you count, that is 20-22 days incubation.

So if you've candled, and know you have developing chicks, don't give up at day 19.

 

[Woodlebrain]

they arrived & I managed to get perfect conditions in my incubator using wet micro fibre cloth diaper inserts I'm also using a duplo lego base sheet to support the eggs, it's great having kids, so many untapped resources

 

[Woodlebrain]

I guess there is no way to tell which are the brown & which are the A&M? If I get any to hatch can you tell right away or have to wait for their feathers to come in?