Low hatch, want to buy some chicks to add~anything I need to worry about?

[j262]

So, my daughter constructed her own incubator and temp/humidity fluctuations were too great, I believe.. It was her project, but would definitely go with buying an incubator if we did it again! It was stressful because not humid enough and she had to help all of them out. We lost 1. We got 4 out of 10. They are about 3 days old and doing great. We have one that doesn't stop crying though. It's like having newborns again.

I promised some to my brother, so I found some chicks on craigslist to add to these guys. Is it okay to put them together or should I keep them separate until they are older? Thinking about disease or anything like that? I told my kids we could keep 2-3 and they'll feel bad for the fourth one as it'll be lonely. I really don't want to keep 4 quail indoors. Trying to talk them into 2, once we know the sexes.

Any thoughts?

Thanks so much!

 

[jojackc]

I would mix them together now if they are close in age. It is better to get them used to each other before hormones kick in. If you are going to only keep 2 or 3 make sure they are all female. If you have only one male you will need at minimum 4 females.

 

[j262]

So, we are keeping the 4 chicks we have, which of course, I have no idea of the sexes yet. Thinking of buying a double decker rabbit hutch, so they can be separated, because of sex issues, if needed. So, for example, if we ended up with 2 male 2 female, you can't put 1 male with the 2 female? Better to just separate by sex? They're already attached to, "Grape", "Bicycle", "Cork" and "Saturn".. there's no getting rid of any of these guys.

Also, huge range of size. 1 of them at 5 days weighed 22g and another only weighed 15g, but all are eating and drinking and acting about the same. Might it be a jumbo or something.