incubating eggs

[ggarden]

Hi

I have some quail eggs that I'd like to hatch with my chinese no name Incubator arriving tommorow,

should water be added or is it best to add at a later date?

Thanks very much

 

[feedman77]

Adding water is an area situation and a trial method.

I personally dry incubate. I don't worry about humidity unless it's below 20. But where I'm at that's rare. If it stays below 20 I add just a little bit of water. I then jump humidity to 70 plus for lockdown and hatch.

I do it this way for all my hatching eggs. I just hatched out 60 bobwhite last month and 50 cream legbars.

I hatch turkeys,quail,chicken and pheasants.

I also heat with wood so my air humidity in my house can get pretty low.

Always have an accurate thermometer to double check incubator temp. Don't always trust any Guage on the incubator. My hatch a month ago I had 3 bator running in one room the gauges ranged from 16 to 35 percent on humidity reading. My bators were a brinsea 20, a 1588 genesis, and 1502 sportsman. So even in upper end bators there are variences.

 

[ggarden]

I thought id start off with a cheap chinese one for now, and get a brinsea eventually they look good!

thank you very much, I was expecting the incubator to arrive tomorrow but it looks like its going to be Monday now, hope my eggs are okay till then

 

[feedman77]

How many days old are the quail eggs. I've kept them for 7 to 10 days without a noticeable loss in hatch percentage.

I usually set weekly.

 

[ggarden]

they will be about 4 days old, have you put different batches in the same incubator before with a few days difference?

 

[feedman77]

Yes I have but I have other incubators that are nothing but dedicated hatchers.

 

[ggarden]

I better get saving for some brinsea's

 

[ggarden]

I have snowflake bobwhites and japanese cortunix quail eggs would these go okay in the same incubator?

Thanks!

 

[BobDBirdDog]

Hi

I have some quail eggs that I'd like to hatch with my chinese no name Incubator arriving tommorow,

should water be added or is it best to add at a later date?

Thanks very much

That's kind of a ambiguous question?

Add water to the eggs in storage or add water to the incubator?

Storing eggs (Bobwhites) I have stored them up to 21 days and had good success (92-96%). But you have to keep them cool 60-70 dgrs and stored in something that will keep them from drying out. I usually rotated the eggs and used a spray bottle to add dampness after the first week and about every other day. Usually I used a hay bed, and the over-spray wold absorb in the hay and help keep the eggs from drying out.

Incubation, I always use water from day 1 to hatch and keep my humidity's around 65-80% while incubating.