Incubating Coturnix

[ManitobaQuail]

Hi all, we are pretty new to keeping coturnix in our backyard. We have just over 2 dozens of them in two hutches. Now that winter is ALMOST here (in Canada anyway..) we'd like to up the egg production a bit and cull out most of our roos. We decided to go with incubating our own eggs.

Here's the situation: in one of the hutches, only two of our 10 hens are laying, not super sure why, they should have enough light to start/continue laying. There are 2 roosters living with the 10 hens. If I save the eggs for a week to incubate I'd have a total of 14 of them. Here's the dilemma - 14 eggs aren't exactly a lot...is it worth it? And with only 2 birds laying and 2 hens in the hutch with them, would breeding their offspring be consider more risky genetically?

Our second hutch hosts over a dozen of 5 week old quails that will be ready to breed/be culled out the next 2-3 weeks. Would waiting be a better idea?

Sorry for this long post. We are just not super sure what makes the most sense.. thanks!

 

[AlderCreekFarms]

From what I've read, they need light 14 hours a day to continue laying well. Laying year round will also shorten lifespan because they dont get a natural "break".
How old are the hens in hutch #1? Mine are 8 weeks old and two just laid their first eggs last night, which were what I call "membrane eggs" because they dont have a shell, just a membrane keeping the innards in.
I'm just starting to cull my males from this batch. It depends what your goals are in keeping your males around. Are they going to be for meat? Then they will be ok at 6-8 weeks, but might not be as big as they will ultimately get, so if you can house them, you can afford to wait a little longer. My opinions are def not exhaustive, I'm learning as I go myself and have the 8 week olds, some 6 week olds, and some hatching any day now.
Also, you can hatch as many or as few as you like for your needs, it all depends on what your goals are. Some people are all about the numbers and costs for business reasons. I am selling eggs and birds only as a side interest because I love the eggs. We just had our first quail(s) for dinner last night, me having never killed anything bigger than a cockroach in my life. It's a byproduct of having too many males. So as of yet I am not into the profit arena. I cull them when they get too aggressive or when I know they won't be very big.
Sorry for the long post...hope it helps some.

 

[AlderCreekFarms]

One more thing....not sure if you should wait that long to incubate. Seems like you're supposed to do it within a week or viability goes down. I'll let someone with more experience with it chime in.