How long after hatching?

[ChickenQuail007]

How long after hatching should chicks remain in the brooder? 3 days? 5 days? A week? If you know about these for ducklings and quail chicks add them here! My quail chick died after being in the brooder for 5 days & 5 nights. How long aftef hatching?

 

[Pyxis]

Do you mean in the incubator? The brooder is what you move them to after they hatch. Three days is considered the maximum, after that they really don't have enough stores to survive. If there was no food or water in the incubator, the quail probably died because it starved or dehydrated.

 

[ChickenQuail007]

I went out for 4 - 7 hours and the chick was already independent on eating and drinking. It was 5 days old. It already imprinted on me within a few hours after hatching. If it helps, there was only 1 chick that hatched out of 20+ eggs, which is odd and I know it wasn't just a weird thing, it happened three times and 1/3 none hatched out of 16 eggs. Some sites claim that you should leave the hatched chicks in the incubators for up to 48 hours because of the yolk that is stored in their body but if thatbwas true, it would not seem very sensible for a hatched chick to stay longer in the incubator than in the brooder. It didn't die of starvation or dehydration however as there were food & water in the brooder.

 

[Pyxis]

Okay so you did mean brooder then, my bad! They stay in the brooder until they are feathered enough and old enough to no longer need the heat source and can stay warm outside of it on their own, and how long that takes depends on what time of year it is and if you're putting them directly outside. If the chick just up and died even though it was eating a drinking something probably wasn't quite right with it. If these eggs are all coming from the same source and the bad hatch rates are consistent even though incubating goes smoothly I would suspect a genetic problem.

 

[ChickenQuail007]

Could it be something to do with shipping?

 

[Pyxis]

Oh if they were shipped that definitely would help explain it. Eggs can experience a ton of rough handling in shipping and even a 50% hatch rate is considered excellent on shipped eggs. It wouldn't explain deaths after hatching, though.

 

[ChickenQuail007]

It's not being shipped by air mail but on a 4 - 8 hour drive from where the eggs were collected.