Locked down too early..

[ByronCNY]

Hello all,

I want to say, first, that I thought I had exhausted all of these potential pitfalls before I started incubating Coturnix quail eggs.. however, being my first time I skipped a pretty important topic, "What is day 1?" As a result, I calculated what I thought was laying date as day 1, putting me 3 days ahead of schedule.

After excitedly seeing/thinking I saw movement after candling on.. I suppose day 10 (by my original count, day 13) I locked them down yesterday without concern. I'm not sure what made me nervous about my timing, but I realized my mistake this morning and now I need to know whether I should leave them in position on day 12 after being mistakenly set still on day 11, or turn them (it has been 24 hours since they were last moved).

Kindof bummed I made such a sweeping oversight, and hoping I didn't just kill my chicks. I saw a lot of evidence of life during candling, or at least I thought I did.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[ByronCNY]

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[Mehjr10]

Usually the term lock down would be, shut the bator and leave it shut with correct humidity level until all are hatched.. So I would say you would go to the correct prelockdown schedule until you correct date arrives for lock down..

 

[ByronCNY]

Ok, good, will go ahead and resume turning, and drop humidity down again until the correct day 14.

 

[debramag]

I just wanted to ask what I could feed my hen to fatten her up! She's the one I told you about that got attacked by the dog. I tube fed her for some time then started putting her mash in her mouth figuring she needs to get the taste back in her beak! It worked and she is now eaten on her own...BUT...I don't think she eats enough....I don't want to hand feed her since she is eating on her own. What can I give her with good calories for her? And, don't know if anyone saw my thread about my other hen. Found out she went blind BUT she completely freaked out because she couldn't see! I felt so bad for her, all she wanted to do is hug the ground! I wrapped her securely in a towel and that's the only time she was calm. I see other people that had blind hens that did just fine...she just freaked out...it was horrible for her. She would even tuck her head to they floor...anyone ever hear of this with a blind hen? Could be because it happened fast and maybe others lost their site gradually.

 

[debramag]

I wrote this post as a new post but for some reason it went up on this thread....sorry guys

 

[ByronCNY]

As an update, while I'm certain that my inexperience has lowered the hatching ratio, I now have 16 chicks from the 34 eggs I started with. We had an incident with our cat that cost us 4 chicks as well. Sadly, 2 of those 4 were my other color variant, tuxedo. There's a huge part of me that wants to order a small set of tux eggs for some variety, but I'm trying to hold off, at least until I get the hang of this. Plus, there's an awful lot to do with these little guys, plenty enough to keep me busy.

Thanks for the help with the lockdown issue, seems like it was the right advice. Cheers!

 

[TwoCrows]

Well, at least you still had a good hatch. We live and learn as we go. Congrats on the new babies!