how do you candle button quail eggs

[BlueBirdChick]

how in the world do you candle these tiny dark things ????? good grief i didnt think about how hard its gonna be when i ordered them but I know there's gotta be a way any ideas PRETTY PLEASE hehehehee

 

[emvickrey]

Iave cortunix and bob whites and I use the same candler I use for chicken eggs. I don't know how small button quail are but if you have a candler make an attatchement out of foil for it with a small hole that the big end will fit onto. That is what I did before I got a candler. I used the big square battery flash light and made an attachment out of a 2 liter top and foil. Worked for me. A candler is better. I can see in the dark eggs with it.

 

[Denninmi]

It's difficult. On most of them, the shells are too dark, and they're very small.

On my last batch of eggs, I didn't candle at all to speak of, just a couple of them once or twice, didn't open the incubator any more than necessary, and just did the "sniff test" a few times to root out the bad ones, and I had the best hatch of any of my batches of quail eggs.

I know it's fun to see what's going on, but maybe with these it's better not to. I think, because they are so small, they chill a lot faster than a bigger egg.

I've vowed just to put them in the incubator and ignore them as much as possible from that point forward.

 

[Whitehouse Quail]

Float em!

The day before lockdown, float them in 99.5* water. If they wiggle, then they will hatch, if they sink, they are dead, and if they just float but don't wiggle they could be viable. There is a sticky somewhere giving more in depth instructions, but this has proved to be almost foolproof!

 

[Akane]

You don't. With their short incubation and small amount of moisture they rarely go bad. Usually what doesn't develop just dries out so there is no real need to candle or check them. Just set them all and see what pops out on hatch day. Then you can break open the remainder to check if they failed to develop or if they grew but failed to hatch.

 

[emvickrey]

My newest bator has a failing fan. It stops and the temps drop and humidity goes up. Or the bator will keep a low temp and when I turn it up a tad it ends up getting too hot and I have to open it up just to let the heat out quick. Everytime the weather changes I have problem with my bators. The other two seem to be doing ok but that one is really giving me problems. It mainly stays around 96 degrees then will go up to 100 then drop again. I figure all those eggs are gonners but I still give them a chance. I'll see. I should buy a new fan but I want to get a cabinet bator because thw quail put out so many eggs I hardly have room for chicken eggs. I have to toss out quail eggs all the time. I got them to send them to freezer camp but if they get tossed it's lost meals. If I where mechanically inclined I would make one but I'm not. Far from it.

 

[BlueBirdChick]

yeah im gonna leave them alone and keep tunring them like i do and then quickly place the lid back on the bator . i have a good feeling though about them im trying to be optimistic about this again

yeah thats crazy how fast they hatch its like three weeks /// I tried to tell my daughter thats its only three weeks and that it isnt that long.

anyway thankyou all for the ideas

will try that floating thing

 

[Stellar]

The great thing about button eggs is 16 days isn't too long

 

[CatJane0x0]

I'm a newbie at only two separate hatches so far just this year, but didn't have an issue with bad eggs popping or anything. A great hatch rate also -- so I shall do one more perhaps if I can get the cage space. As far as just spying inside, I bought a Black n Decker 130 lumen light at Walmart...it works good enough to see the veins and movement in a good and dark room.

 

[shelleyd2008]

I've never had a button egg explode, they usually dry up first. But to answer your question, put your light inside your hand with your fingers cupped around it so that only a tiny opening exists between your thumb and index finger. Lay the egg on its side on top of this opening so you can see into it. You probably won't see much unless the egg is light in color or totally clear.