incubating quail eggs

[Eggletine]

Hi all I am in the last two days before my eggs hatch. And all of a sudden I am struggling with high temperature and low humidity. I have a home made incubator. How can I get the temp down and the humidity up

 

[atinybrit]

What is your incubator made of?

 

[Eggletine]

It is made out of cardboard it wat the only stuff I had. I use a 60watt light bulb the length is 42 cm, 30,5 cm in width. And I can't remember the height.

 

[Eggletine]

Hi all I am one day away from my first quail eggs hatching. This is my first time incubating eggs. I just remembered I need a brooder but don't have one and can't buy one. How can I make one?. I have an empy fish tank that is very large. But I have no light for it. I am only trying to hatch 5 eggs at a time. Also should I be hearing any thing from the eggs? I started incubating on the 22 second of march at about 4 o'clock the afternoon. If my calculations are right they should hatch tommorrow. I had a slight problem with my humidity and tem for the last two days but figured it out. Will that affect the embrios? And how will I know and when can I check if they are still viable or fertile?

 

[ThaJuicyJuice]

I am surprised what you'll get to hatch from a cardboard incubator. Looks like you should be on day 17 now, so if you held stable temps you should get pipping even today. As far as temp and humidity swings, research shows that by day 8 or 9 embryos are more resilient and can withstand swings in temperature of up to 107 and as far low as 80 with out detrimental effect. Of course these are swings and no prolonged periods of time.

For the brooder, the fish tank will work. Use the light that you had for the incubator. keep temps between 90-95 the first week and decrease by 5 every week after that. Temps can be controlled for the chicks by put the light source closer to the bottom of the brooder and allowing the chicks to choose. Raise the light to decrease temp. Good Luck

 

[Eggletine]

O why what's wrong with card board, I actually misspelled it hardboard.

 

[ThaJuicyJuice]

Late reply here... cardboard soaks up moisture, may not allow for ambient humidity to reach desired levels. But I assume hardboard, guessing that's plywood would work.