New to the quail and egg raising concept. Need help

[Flying Penguin Ranch]

There is so much contradictory information from one book/article to another that I am totally confused.
I have 4 adult Texas A & M and 10 young birds born hatched on the 7th of January. I have a GQF incubator and hatcher. I have yet to have any birds hatch. I have a male with 4 female and he is always going at it with the hens. I have over 30 eggs and don't know what I am doing wrong. Need some help because I need to start producing birds. Please help me.

PS. My girlfriend talked me into this and I'm not sure this is for me. I love my birds

 

[007Sean]

Tell us how you have your incubator set up?
What temp & humidity are you incubating the eggs?
Is the incubator the old 800 or 1200 series or the newer 1500 series?
Where are you storing the eggs prior to setting and for how long?
These are just a few questions needed to troubleshoot the difficulties your having hatching your eggs.

 

[Plip]

Welcome Flying Penguin. It's great to have you here.

I'm interested in the answers to the questions Sean posed, too. Maybe we can help you get this figured out.

Along with those answers, maybe you can give us a timeline: when did you start the eggs, when (if at all) did you start a "lockdown" period, when did you pull the plug on that batch of eggs?

 

[Flying Penguin Ranch]

Good morning Sean, thanks for your great questions.
The incubator is a 1502 model. The temperature is 98-99 degrees with 53% humidity.
I picked up my 14 birds on 1/13. 3 eggs laid on the 15th. I have 4 adult hens and 1 adult rooster. The other 10 were babies and growing fast. I change the water and food twice daily. They are fed non-gmo food of a good quality. At first I was putting the eggs into the incubator right after being laid. That is what I read in on publication. Now I know they must be placed at room temperature for a period of time. One publication states a few hours others say up to 7 days.
I placed 5 eggs that were 14 days old into the hatcher on 2/10 with nothing happening yet. Any help is appreciated.

 

[Flying Penguin Ranch]

Plip & Sean,
Not sure what you mean by a lock down.
Also, when candling the eggs at what point is this done and what am I looking for?

 

[DK newbie]

Lockdown is the last couple of days of incubation, where you raise the humidity to make it easier for the chicks to break out and stop turning the eggs. Usually you'll also stop opening the incubator, as that will allow the humidity to escape. You say you use a hatcher? I don't know what that is, but it sounds like it serves the same purpose as lockdown.

You can candle from around day 5. At that point you might - or might not - be able to see veins indicating the egg is fertile. Don't toss it if you see no veins, quail eggs can be hard to candle. Later you should see a dark area in the egg, getting bigger towards the end of the incubation.

Is it correct you only incubated 3 eggs? And they were laid 2 days after you got the birds? If the hens and roo hadn't been together for several days when you got them, the eggs might actually not have been fertile yet. Also if the birds had only just started laying, low fertility is very common. On the other hand, if the adults were more then 2 years old, low fertility is also normal.
If neither of those seem to explain the issue, I guess the fact the birds had just been moved could also mess up fertility - moving birds often causes egg production to stop, so I suppose it can cause other egg-issues as well.

Keep in mind, I know most of the above from reading this forum. I don't have coturnix quail myself and also don't have an incubator, so I could be a little off at some points..

 

[Plip]

Hello again, Penguin!

They should have hatched by now, but I'd leave them in another day or so, just to be sure. When you do take them out, break them open (this may not be pleasant) to see if the chicks began to develop at all.

A couple more questions for you:

1. Did you put the eggs in the rack with the pointy side down? The air cell in the egg is in the other end (the wider end) and it should be up. It seems upside down, and most people would probably put them in pointy side up if they didn't specifically know to do it the other way.

2. I don't use a separate hatcher (I just hatch the eggs in the bottom of the incubator). But a hatcher is fine. My question is, was the hatcher heated? It should be at the same temperature as the incubator.

3. What was the humidity in the hatcher? I always increase the humidity quite a bit during that hatching period (the last few days, which is also called "lockdown").

4. You said early in your first post that you had four adult Texas A&M quail (and more that were hatched on January 7). Later in your post you said you had four females and one male. Could you clarify? Is the male one of the adults and, if so, do you know how old he is?

5. Do you know how old the hens are? If they're either very young adults (and these were their first eggs) or older adults (close to two years old or older), that could affect fertility. if they were young, the more recent eggs should be better. If they're old, you'll probably need to wait on your January 7 chicks to start laying (just a few more weeks, probably).

Here are a couple of other things that occur to me that may explain your chicks not hatching:

A. I think you said you collected the eggs two days after you brought the quail home. It could be that even though the male is doing his job now that he hadn't at that time. And the eggs just weren't fertile.

B. 53% humidity is higher that I use (although I know I tend to be on the low end -- 35 to 40%). I think 53% is within the range that a lot of people recommend. But if we don't come up with another explanation, it could be that the eggs didn't lose enough moisture during those first 14 days and the chicks drowned when they finally pipped. Lower humidity would address that.

C. I keep my temperature right at 99.5 degree the whole time. I don't think you being one degree lower than that explains the lack of hatching, but I would raise it a degree next time. Also, you might put a small digital thermometer in the incubator and run it a bit, just to make sure that the incubator's thermostat is working right.

D. I'm not sure where you're located. Is it possible the eggs were exposed to extreme temperature, hot or cold, before you collected them?

F. This time of year, we always seem to lose power during a storm at some point where I live. If that happened to you for more than an hour or so, it would be a problem. Or if anyone was opening the incubator a little too often and inadvertently cooling it off, that wouldn't be good.

G. Just really bad luck. If I read your post correctly, you incubated five eggs. You would think that you should get at least two or three to hatch, but you're (almost) always going to have some that don't hatch, and with just five eggs, it's possible you didn't do anything wrong and just got really unlucky.

Several of these are kind of grasping at straws, I know, but it's got to be something.

 

[Flying Penguin Ranch]

Hello again, Penguin!

They should have hatched by now, but I'd leave them in another day or so, just to be sure. When you do take them out, break them open (this may not be pleasant) to see if the chicks began to develop at all.

A couple more questions for you:

1. Did you put the eggs in the rack with the pointy side down? The air cell in the egg is in the other end (the wider end) and it should be up. It seems upside down, and most people would probably put them in pointy side up if they didn't specifically know to do it the other way.

2. I don't use a separate hatcher (I just hatch the eggs in the bottom of the incubator). But a hatcher is fine. My question is, was the hatcher heated? It should be at the same temperature as the incubator.

3. What was the humidity in the hatcher? I always increase the humidity quite a bit during that hatching period (the last few days, which is also called "lockdown").

4. You said early in your first post that you had four adult Texas A&M quail (and more that were hatched on January 7). Later in your post you said you had four females and one male. Could you clarify? Is the male one of the adults and, if so, do you know how old he is?

5. Do you know how old the hens are? If they're either very young adults (and these were their first eggs) or older adults (close to two years old or older), that could affect fertility. if they were young, the more recent eggs should be better. If they're old, you'll probably need to wait on your January 7 chicks to start laying (just a few more weeks, probably).

Here are a couple of other things that occur to me that may explain your chicks not hatching:

A. I think you said you collected the eggs two days after you brought the quail home. It could be that even though the male is doing his job now that he hadn't at that time. And the eggs just weren't fertile.

B. 53% humidity is higher that I use (although I know I tend to be on the low end -- 35 to 40%). I think 53% is within the range that a lot of people recommend. But if we don't come up with another explanation, it could be that the eggs didn't lose enough moisture during those first 14 days and the chicks drowned when they finally pipped. Lower humidity would address that.

C. I keep my temperature right at 99.5 degree the whole time. I don't think you being one degree lower than that explains the lack of hatching, but I would raise it a degree next time. Also, you might put a small digital thermometer in the incubator and run it a bit, just to make sure that the incubator's thermostat is working right.

D. I'm not sure where you're located. Is it possible the eggs were exposed to extreme temperature, hot or cold, before you collected them?

F. This time of year, we always seem to lose power during a storm at some point where I live. If that happened to you for more than an hour or so, it would be a problem. Or if anyone was opening the incubator a little too often and inadvertently cooling it off, that wouldn't be good.

G. Just really bad luck. If I read your post correctly, you incubated five eggs. You would think that you should get at least two or three to hatch, but you're (almost) always going to have some that don't hatch, and with just five eggs, it's possible you didn't do anything wrong and just got really unlucky.

Several of these are kind of grasping at straws, I know, but it's got to be something.

Hello Plip,
Wow, you have given me a lot of info. Thank you.

Yes, I have been putting the eggs in the incubator pointed end down.

The hatcher is heated at the same temp as the incubator and humidity is 50-58%

The 5 adults are the Texas A & M and are around 4 months old

The male has definitely been having contact with the hens in an attempt to fertilize the eggs. I have never witnessed this before and never knew how rough the male is with the hen.

I built a dedicated room in my garage with heating and lighting. I am home 95% of the time and there has not been any power outages. The temperature in the room that the quail are in is between 72 and 88 degrees depending on the weather outside. I am in Reno, NV. On a personal note I am a Washington native born in Aberdeen. Lots of humidity there

Right now I have 12 eggs at room temperature that were laid on 2/10-11& 12th. When should these go into the incubator?

 

[Flying Penguin Ranch]

Lockdown is the last couple of days of incubation, where you raise the humidity to make it easier for the chicks to break out and stop turning the eggs. Usually you'll also stop opening the incubator, as that will allow the humidity to escape. You say you use a hatcher? I don't know what that is, but it sounds like it serves the same purpose as lockdown.

You can candle from around day 5. At that point you might - or might not - be able to see veins indicating the egg is fertile. Don't toss it if you see no veins, quail eggs can be hard to candle. Later you should see a dark area in the egg, getting bigger towards the end of the incubation.

Is it correct you only incubated 3 eggs? And they were laid 2 days after you got the birds? If the hens and roo hadn't been together for several days when you got them, the eggs might actually not have been fertile yet. Also if the birds had only just started laying, low fertility is very common. On the other hand, if the adults were more then 2 years old, low fertility is also normal.
If neither of those seem to explain the issue, I guess the fact the birds had just been moved could also mess up fertility - moving birds often causes egg production to stop, so I suppose it can cause other egg-issues as well.

Keep in mind, I know most of the above from reading this forum. I don't have coturnix quail myself and also don't have an incubator, so I could be a little off at some points..

Currently I have approx. 20 eggs incubated and 5 in the hatcher. If you don't mind reading my reply to Plip, it may help you help me.

 

[007Sean]

You want to up the humidity in the hatcher. Close to 70% as possible. Humidity in the incubator will depend on your local ambient humidity as to how much you need to adjust the water level to get the humidity somewhat stabile in the 45 to 50% range. It maybe that the eggs just aren't fertile, yet?
If I were you, I'd get two independent thermometers and another hygrometer, that are calibrated to a lab standards. This would insure that your temps and humidity were accurate.
Other than that, @DK newbie and @Plip have given their recommendations and advice.
Edited to add: Don't store the eggs longer than 10 days, after that fertility falls way off!