My Incubator Design for Quail Eggs (WARNING: lots of pictures)

[cookiesdaddy]

Hello everyone - I have a small flock of backyard chickens and decide to raise quails also. Learned so much from this site and a few youtube videos I watched. I came up with an incubator design, with these special features:

- using this thermostat from Amazon ($17 at Amazon, you can get cheaper on eBay but have to wait for shipment from China)

- adding a ceramic tile a couple inches underneath the eggs to act as a "thermal mass" which helps keeping temperature constant

- adding an egg turner copied from this design

- creating an air flow that helps circulate the hot air while keeping temperature constant where the eggs are

- locating the water & sponge near the top ventilation holes to help draw moisture as well as ease of filling water from outside (well this one I stumbled upon - didn't think of it until I experimented with humidity control)

You can see the cross section of the box here:


And here's the construction:

Wood box, 3/8 " plywood, 24" L x 17 W x 14 H




Adding the 2" insulation foam I had laying around




After installing all the electronics, cabling, light bulbs, fan, motor for egg turner. You can see the narrow right compartment with the components. The left square is the 12" x 12" half inch tile (thicker is better - more thermal mass)



adding wire rack above the tile to hold the eggs. Below is the tray with wet cloth (white) for humidity, but I don't think I need that anymore, now that I have a different location for source of moisture.



Adding closet liner to hold the eggs. Actually if I could change something I will add a finer grid wire rack. It's currently 1" x 2" which is too large for quail eggs so they don't turn very smoothly.



Adding the eggs turner. I used 4 wheels with ball bearings (bought real cheap at a surplus store). I'll try to upload a video of how it works. Don't know how to upload video yet.




Adding wire rack above the components for tray of water and wet towel. Have to be careful not to drop water on the electronics.



Here's the top with double pane window. The 4 ventilation holes on the right draw in the air, the left ones are for exit. I'm actually plugging up half of them to maintain the moisture.



Found a local guy (Craigslist) who sold me 3 dozens for $15. I was hoping for the jumbos but I saw that his quails were not that big. Also I'm not too sure of fertility. But this is what I have to try out at the moment. Just started this batch yesterday. Temperature is solid at 99 degrees F on the Accurite digital thermometer. The other 2 aquarium thermometers read 100 degrees.



Now the wait ...

(actually I have a couple questions which I will ask in a following post)

 

[deadeye]

now i could be incorrect but i think the eggs need to remain pointed end down until they go into lockdown then they could be laid on their side. otherwise looks like a great setup!

 

[dc3085]

now i could be incorrect but i think the eggs need to remain pointed end down until they go into lockdown then they could be laid on their side. otherwise looks like a great setup!

It will work but you are correct in that it works much better with the eggs being supported vertically. Consider though the hen never arranges them in the way we do in an incubator and they spend the entire incubation period sideways on the ground.

 

[cookiesdaddy]

This video shows how the eggs turner works. I may have a problem though - I have a mechanical timer that turns it on 3 times a day. Unfortunately 30 minutes is the minimum duration for each "ON" cycle, so 3 times a day the eggs would go back and forth like this for 30 minutes. It will be approximately 30 cycles back and forth, since my geared motor is 1 RPM. Is this too much egg turning? The other problem is that at the end of the 30 minutes cycle it may not end with each egg in the opposite phase as when it began.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

Very interesting.. will be watching this thread i havent hatched anything before but this looks fairly simple. Hope ya hatch some

 

[cookiesdaddy]

Hello everyone - just wanted to update with a hatch report. I bought 36 eggs from a local guy. After 10-12 days candeling showed 11-12 were infertile ("glow"). Out of 25 fertile eggs, 16 hatched today right on day 17. Two are working on it. One small one kept rolling back and forth for a couple hours but could not peep through so I assume it's gone. I'm going to wait another day or so. So exciting that this works so well. My first hatch ever.

Notes about the incubator design:

- Feeling relieved that the egg turner seemed to work fine.

- My egg platform is 1 x 2 wire mesh with a soft shelf liner on top. The problem is the chicks walked all over and fell through the mesh into the wind tunnel. Then they wandered into the electrical & fan compartment. One got hit by the unprotected fan. Oops.

- I made notes to put protective shield around fan, overlay the 1 x 2 wire mesh with a finer grid platform and protect especially around the corners so the chicks won't fall through the cracks again.

- Also have to figure out a better way to control humidity. Couldn't see the water tray clearly I overfilled it and water sipped out the box :-( Probably need to paint the box especially the inside to prevent humidity absorbing to the wood.



Getting ready for 50 eggs from JMF next week

 

[aprophet]

It will work but you are correct in that it works much better with the eggs being supported vertically. Consider though the hen never arranges them in the way we do in an incubator and they spend the entire incubation period sideways on the ground.

It does not matter I have had great hatches ( 85-95 % ) both ways

 

[dheltzel]

I'd move the water pan under the heater and electronics, in the air flow heat the air and then run the hotter, drier air over the water to increase evaporation. Also, it can't drip onto anything critical that way.
Quail are perhaps the most resilient of all eggs to problems with humidity and turning, but it's not a bad idea to work on optimizing anyway.

You can add more thermal mass by staking more tiles. I like that idea. I am thinking about making a hatcher and I appreciated your details and pics.