my quail laid their first eggs!- questions

[Quail27]

So, I came home today to find 3 coturnix eggs in their cage (Happy Mother's Day To Me!).
The plan has been that we'll eat the eggs.
Now I see them and I want baby quail!

Will coturnix quail sit on their eggs? These weren't laid in the pots I have in their cage (hoping they'd use them as nest boxes). They were laid all over the place.
I don't have the money for a good incubator right now, so if they're not going to sit on them then I'll go ahead and cook with them.

I moved them into one of the pots all together... was that bad?


And for future reference, I have a silkie pullet right now and I want to know does she have to be laying fertilized eggs to go broody? And will she incubate the coturnix eggs?

Sorry for all the newbie questions!

 

[Boyd]

Quote:
Your silkie would probably be more than happy to go broody if she has enough eggs under her. The Japanese used these bantys to incubate the quail eggs since coturnix rarely (VERY) go broody from what I've read (never seen it, Monarch? Sam?)

I wouldn't worry bout combining all the eggs. If you get too confused about what you should do with those eggs, I'll give you my address

 

[Quail27]

Okay, now for possibly the most stupid question...

a chicken has to be laying, not just "almost laying" in order to be willing to sit on eggs, right?

 

[Boyd]

yeah

My buffs wouldn't go broody till they were almost 10 months old which i wouldn't let them because I wanted more brown eggs

 

[tumra]

I had some quails a while ago that did go broody and sit on their eggs... i ended up hatching 2. It is very rare and i was actually lucky for it to happen... So it does happen but dont count on it. you are better off eating the eggs now.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Quote:
Not a stupid question at all. And surprisingly, a silkie can go broody before she ever lays an egg! I haven't had mine do that that I know of, but I have a couple of girls that layed 2 eggs tops before going broody! How old is your silkie? Mine didn't start laying till they were at least 7 months old, but they were hatched in June or July last year, so they were hitting laying age in middle of winter.

 

[Boyd]

>a silkie can go broody before she ever lays an egg

Wowsers, sorry bout being wrong here!!! I've never had it happen

 

[shelleyd2008]

Quote:
Not a problem, I didn't know about it myself until I had some go broody. I didn't think the newest broody had started laying. I asked about it on the board, and I was told that they can go broody even before they lay. Mine had laid 2 eggs and went broody.

Learn something new everyday you know

 

[Boyd]

hrm........

Gotta get me another silkie