- May 4, 2011
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So, we thought that it would be helpful to encourage some fun during our stay-at-home school and work during the Pandemic if we incubated quail instead of picking up chicks. We have always done day-old chicks (chickens) or re-homed chickens, which makes this our first incubation project and our first quail project. We have built and secured an outdoor habitat for the birds (this was a great family project that took a lot of time), we have the brooder ready, and we have carefully managed and recorded our daily temp and humidity data. Now we WAIT! We are now in day 16 going into day 17 and everyone in the house is getting stir crazy for some chicks and worrying themselves silly about the health/viability of our potential quail chicks. We have placed one of our indoor home security cameras at the window of the incubator to reduce the number of times that kids and adults are going in and out of the room where the chicks are (which is also my current office, maybe I should have thought that through too as it seems they may be louder when they hatch than I expected). Everyone can now access a view of about half of the 14 eggs and the temp/humidity readings from their phone...this will also capture motion and record hatching chicks which is ideal for all of us.
MY QUESTIONS: 1) What in the world do you do to distract yourselves when the hatch date is imminent, but uncertain in its exact timing during these last few days? Home school work has already been very disrupted. I suppose this is not terrible, but it is stressful for mom (me) trying to get kids to do their work (and to simultaneously do my own) with all the turmoil. 2) Do most really hatch on day 18 with the prescribed temps and humidity being kept very consistently? and, finally, 3) What is the longest you have waited for hatchlings?
MY QUESTIONS: 1) What in the world do you do to distract yourselves when the hatch date is imminent, but uncertain in its exact timing during these last few days? Home school work has already been very disrupted. I suppose this is not terrible, but it is stressful for mom (me) trying to get kids to do their work (and to simultaneously do my own) with all the turmoil. 2) Do most really hatch on day 18 with the prescribed temps and humidity being kept very consistently? and, finally, 3) What is the longest you have waited for hatchlings?
