Incubation question

[RiverOtter]

I have one incubator.
Is it ok to incubate quail eggs and chicken eggs at the same time? The eggs are in baskets so even if any hatch early/late the chicks shouldn't be able to touch and the chicken eggs are from my own birds, all healthy, less then a year old and the first birds on the property for 11 years (our place was vacant before we bought it) so there shouldn't be any latent disease in the soil.

This quail hatch is important to me but I have people wanting to buy chicks and something's got to pay for their feed. If there is any danger I'll have to borrow/buy/beg/steal/build a second incubator.

Oh, and YES, of course I have different brooders for them. LOL, I've got LOTS of brooders, but only one incubator. I have a brooder for each basket of eggs, and still have brooders left over.

 

[88Haywood88]

I wouldn't, because as you know they take different lengths of time to hatch out. the temp of the bator can be thrown off by the removal of the quail eggs/chicks. this could lead to too much adjustment at the later stages of chicken development... or quail... whichever hatches last. What could happen is you could have one thing hatch out well, and the last thing hatch out poorly. hmmm... I didn't think it would work... gotta try that.

 

[jm93030]

I have done it and it works for me

I set the chicken eggs first and 4 days later add the quail eggs

Baby chickens will teach quails eating and drinking

My baby qauil follow the baby chickens all around the brooder

Remember

Chickens - 21 days incubation

Coturnix Quails - 16- 18 days

Other quails 21- 23 days may need to set this ones first ,2 days before you add the chicken eggs

 

[Robo]

Go ahead and hatch them together, keep them separate in the bator. But brood separately!

 

[Stellar]

You can incubate them together. Just note the days of incubation for each species

 

[RiverOtter]

Ok, great!
I got quail eggs, then had a worry attack as I had just set chicken eggs 2 days before
There shouldn't be too much temp swings as they'll go in a day or 2 of each other and I can just quit turning the chicken eggs a day early. The eggs are in baskets so not too much opening and shutting to remove them, just wait for the basketful to hatch, take out the whole thing and into the brooder! Though now that I've said that they'll spread their hatching over 18 hours or something just to mess with me

I've got 5 brooders and can rig up more, no worries there. The chicks should be picked up within a day or 2 of hatching. I really need to get cracking on building another incubator.

 

[thatchickenlady]

I wouldn't incubate game bird eggs with chicken eggs, as my vet has said, disease causing organisms can transfer in the incubator environment. But then again your chickens may not be ones that are carrying anything that is detrimental to your quail. Question is, do you want to take the risk after hearing all the input from others here on the board?