Holding Quail egg for brooding??

[Urbanchicken62]

How many days can you accumulate eggs before bring them up to temp in a brooder? Is there a temp range that should be maintained before putting in brooder?

 

[sourland]

Most people will recommend a shorter 'holding' period, but I have held eggs of many breeds (not quail however) for up to 21 days with resultant good hatch %. They were maintained at temps around 60 F and 50 % humidity and turned daily. I held them that long because I only had one incubator - would run a batch, sanitize and start over again.

 

[dc3085]

After 10 days is just when hatchabiliity starts to decrease more rapidly in quail eggs, but you could go farther. Keep them close to the temp and humidity she gave you and remember to turn them. Don't wash them and touch them as little as possible until they hatch. It's different by the bird species too. Chukar eggs hatch best when stored for 7 days first and don't lose noticeable hatchability for 30 days and can be hatched with reasonable success beyond 40 days so you just need to know the general tolerances of what you're keeping.

You can find a study I think the UC davis archives (could be texas A&M archives too but pretty sure davis is it). that actually details their results from holding time research they've done and it hink it was done over 28 or 30 days.

 

[Urbanchicken62]

Thanks for the info. I have also read contradicting info on raising chickens and quail. I have seen that people do it without problems and that others seem to have terrible problems. I do have chickens, but there would be no direct contact and where I plan to build the quail pen is 20 to 30 feet away from the closest chicken coop. I don't let any of my chickens free range any longer because I couldn't break my 8 month old boxer pups from eating chicken poop or from wanting to eat chickens!
What precautions should be taken or is this just a bad idea?

 

[dc3085]

People that are keeping chickens with quail are doing the entire poultry world a dis service. Chickens carry and are resistant too many diseases that will cause mortality among quail. There are no tests, vaccines or cures for the worst of the diseases so it's just a game of russian roulette that those people are playing. Coryza, MG, and Blackhead are very serious poultry diseases that cannot be cured once a bird is infected and will be freely transmitted throughout that birds life. The people keeping them together are willfully choosing to avoid MANY thousands of pages of scientific information regarding poultry illness. These is an impossibly massive industry that already learned all of these things and paid to find out a lot of it themselves. People treat poultry illnesses like its no big deal, what can it hurt, but if you are commercially raising poultry you can have your entire flock seized for euthanasia for some of these things which should tell you a little bit about how serious it is.

Just about every disease you read about here that is viral or bacterial or transmitted by parasites can be carried by chickens without anyone ever knowing since there is no test for most poultry diseases. There is a "Vaccine" for coryza but its only called that because marketing laws are loose these days. It's no more a vaccine for coryza that cough syrup is a vaccine for the common cold.

A good thing to remember is that most times poultry diseases can only be truly diagnosed with a necropsy which is exactly what it sounds like and involves a scalpel.... Usually by the point you're there you are suffering heavy mortality.