Incubating Quail eggs for the First time!!!!

[Goodale13]

I am incubating 12 quail eggs for the first time. I have built an incubator, set the temps and humidity etc and have been watching them closely (almost obsessively so for the last 7 days. :-/ I am super worried. I have been researching and watching videos all over and am not fully convinced there is anything inside of them. I tried candling but it doesnt work very well as the shells are so dark (button quail eggs). I think i can faintly see something inside, but it could be just the yolk? I can't see veins or a spot of any kind, but then again the shell is dark, so its hard to tell. I have a stethoscope, but can't hear anything - but again, the eggs are so tiny its hard to get a good contact to hear anything.

I super worried DX I want there to be at least one to hatch, so that I haven't failed in doing this.

Any tips? Advice? Ideas of what I can do?

Also... when I carefully turn/rotate the egg I can feel something moving inside a couple of them. Is this a good sign, do you think? Or not?

 

[kuchchicks]

Quail are hard to candle. I have hatched them 3 times this spring. I was doing Coturnix quail and in about half of the eggs I could barely see inside. Those I knew for sure if something was growing or not. The other half for whatever reason the shells were too thick or something but I was not able to see inside them. For the ones that I could see inside I did discard the empty eggs along the way. The ones that I could not see inside I left in the bator the entire time regardless.

At this point if you cannot see inside the shell there is not much that you can do except to keep doing what you are doing. I would not keep trying to candle them for a couple of reasons. One, every time you touch an egg - any egg, you chance accidentally dropping it, or dropping something on it, or cooling it down needlessly. Second, quail eggs are very small; they are not as forgiving on cooling down as chicken eggs.

What are you keeping your temp at? Forced or still air? What about your humidity?

 

[Goodale13]

I've been keeping the temp at around 37.5 Celsius. Humidity 50-60% in between. Still air. They are in a homemade incubator, not one bought online. It is soooo frustrating

It's like waiting for xmas. I will sit back and wait and hope for the best. I have my finger crossed tightly.

 

[kuchchicks]

It is very exciting and agree it is so hard to wait!!!!

Your humidity is a little on the higher side. Because you are already having some trouble candling the eggs, monitoring the size of your air cells will be difficult. You may want to lower your humidity a bit. I usually run mine around 35% give or take and have had an average of 95% hatch rate with my quail eggs. Other than that everything else sounds great. Good luck! Keep me informed.