help please! hatching question

[sullivansteph]

Ok- I need help! I have quail eggs in the incubator- on day 22. I have had about 10 external pips- you can see the dent in the shell, but no zip yet. The pips have been there for 24 hours. Should I leave things alone or help them hatch? A few of the eggs are moving a little bit, but nothing has zipped and it has been at least 24 hours. What should I do?

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Day 22 on quail? I dont hatch quail but aint that way late?

Im not a fan of helping but 24 hours with no zips out of 10 pips? If it was chickens I would be opening one up to see what was going on.....

 

[sullivansteph]

I checked the incubation on quail and for this species it is 22-23 days. I opened up one, and he looks fully formed but maybe a little worn out. I think that I'll try another one. what do you think?

 

[cmom]

I don't hatch quail but do hatch pheasants which is similar.

 

[scatteredeggs]

Quote:
@sullivansteph,

i just cleaned up my incubator.

i had my fisrt batch of coturnix quails that started hatching on the 16th day thru the 18th. yesterday was 19th day. pretty much 24 hours before that, there were no movements anymore, altho i saw 2 pipped eggs. i hatched 9 out of 59 eggs.
i must have killed the full term ones by humidity drops whenever i open the incubator to retrieve the fluffed chicks. i think i should work more to have them hatch around the same time (by keeping constant temp?)

i eggtopsied the rest. found a mix of unfertilized ones and developed ones, from early stage to full term (i think those were the ones that pipped).

i am finetuning my DIY styrofoam incubator to add a way to turn eggs without opening the incubator, to add more heat sinks (i noticed that my temp went down to 97-98 in the second week), to calibrate the temp well (not sure how to do that, maybe re calibrate my thermometers again).