Infertile rooster??? Or just too young?

[toolie27]

I recently purchased two coturnix hens and a rooster at a local sale. I do not know their age, but the hens have been laying an egg a day each since I brought them home. And the rooster does his duty quite often to the hens.

I also purchased a Brinsea Mini-Eco and put in 16 eggs to incubate on June 1. I stored the eggs in a bowl of sand in a cool closet in the basement for the 8 days until I had the 16. I turned them every 8 hours and made sure to follow the instructions for the Brinsea.

I finally opened an egg this afternoon , a week after I expected them to hatch, to find no development inside. Zero. Not even blood spots. We ended up with 16 rotten little eggs.

Has anyone experienced this before? Do I have a dud rooster? Or could it be that he was too young to fertilize??

Any help will be appreciated. I don't know whether to turn this guy into an appetizer or try again???

 

[Quail Jailer]

Id try again but get yourself a good candling light and you should be able to detect development after 5-7 days, do it in a dark room and practice a bit with an egg. his bullets may not be making holes in the paper, or maybe he was young...i dunno.

 

[Dragons4u]

If he's young, may not be firing on all cylinders yet. Then hens will start laying several weeks before the roo's motor really gets going.

 

[dc3085]

I breed for color patterns in golden quail. I've noticed that after too many generations of certain inbreeding will create a lethal gene. For instance a raccoon killed most of my birds and I had to make a 1:7 roon group out of what was left. 6 of the hens are siblings of the rooster, out of 44 eggs I incubated from his siblings none were fertile. What I'm getting at is they may be too inbred and have a lethal gene.

Side note are they goldens of any sort? Goldens can come equipped with a 25% lethal gene due to all the inbreeding done to preserve that mutation.

 

[toolie27]

Thanks everyone. I put another bunch in the incubator tonight. Can anyone suggest a candled that works for quail eggs? Will the Brinsea one work on stuff that small? I tried the popcan/led light and it didn't work very well.
As far as if they are golden, I have no idea. The roo's chest is kinda golden I guess. The girls look like normal Coturnix though, from what I've seen in pictures. If I post a picture can you tell?

 

[Dragons4u]

I have a 60 lumen flashlight, once of the pen light kind and it works well enough to ser the air sack. Hard to see in those cot eggs no matter what.

 

[Quail Jailer]

use a small led light, got at walmart ehh $4 says "life gear" on it also has a red light on bottom

At any rate it has like 9 LEDs and it works great in a dark room.

I also use the core tube from a roll of electrical tape, with a ring of black weatherstrip foam inside that, to seal the egg to the light.

Let me know if I need to post a pic.

 

[dc3085]

I'll save you the trouble of posting a pic

Do they both look straw colored like this?