This is my thought...take it with a grain of salt. I have never hatched quail. But I have hatched chickens
I think 40-60% is too high for those first 2 weeks or so. I was hatching at that humidity and so many just never hatched. They made it up to lockdown and then died.
I read the article from Bill Worrel (?) on dry incubating for the 3rd time and it dawned on me that dry incubation averaged 40% humidity. I was going too high.
So, my last batch of eggs I dry incubated. I rarely added water and the humidity stayed about 30% even in this dry climate. I would add a little water now and then to get it to 40 and then let it go back down.
When I candled the eggs I thought I had goofed for sure. The air cells looked huge and I did not think a chick could be in such a small space.
Well, I had a great hatch. Not all, but very good. That showed me that I was better off going lower than higher.
With quail eggs being so small and still needing that aircell percentage to shrink for good development, I think that you need to go lower on the humidity to help them lose a bit more moisture.
The other issue I had (and a kind BYC poster helped me) was that I was starting the lockdown period with too high a humidity.
I actually had 5 chicks dry in the membrane due to that. I still don't understand all the reasoning of it, but it made sense then and I will start my lockdowns at 65% and let the hatching chicks bring it up to where it wants to go from now on.
You may want to "test" some eggs (a small batch) with dry incubation and see if it works better.
