Newbie...

[creekrocket]

Ive been reading alot here about raisng quail for eggs/meat. Ive got a million questions to ask, but for now my question is.....No matter if your eggs are fertile or not, can you still harvest them to eat?

 

[bingrancher]

Yes, I raise mine in colonies but when they are fertilized you have to check for eggs more often and refridgerate them or they can start developing and nothing would freak someone out more then cracking developing eggs lol

 

[creekrocket]

Thanks! Sounds easy enough...but how do you know that they are fertile? I guess it wouldnt make since putting unfertile eggs in an incubator?

 

[TwoCrows]

Many people just love to eat fertile eggs! Claim they taste better. LOL Quite frankly, they sound

to me. LOL

If you have males and hens together, and they are mating, about 2 weeks after you see them doing the "deed", you will start to get fertile eggs. You can't tell if an egg is fertile unless you open them up. So when setting eggs, you just have to assume that eggs from mating pairs are going to be fertile. Of course not all of them are.

If you crack open a fertile egg, if you can see a little bull's eye with a ring around it in the yolk, that is a fertile egg.

Enjoy eating those eggs!!

 

[creekrocket]

OK..say I have two dozen quail. They start laying, and Im not sure if they are fertile or not, and I want to incubate them. Do you just stick them in the incubator and hope for the best? Im still srcatching my head on this one. Im not sure how yall know which eggs to put in the incubator...Thanks for the patience

 

[TwoCrows]

First, are your quail mating? Have they been doing so for a few weeks now? (I am not talking just laying eggs....are they actually mating with each other?) If so, and you have seen them mating for a couple weeks now, you can collect eggs for incubation. Not every egg gets fertilized within the hen, but most of them do.

 

[TwoCrows]

Oh, and to clarify, we don't know which eggs are fertile and which are not. We just set them all.

 

[creekrocket]

Funny thing is, I dont even have any yet...

I'm just trying to take in as much as I can before jumping into it. I dont want to get into this blind, right off the bat.

 

[TwoCrows]

LOL....totally understandable! It never hurts to do your homework before jumping into these things.

 

[James the Bald]

Here is a link to a thread with pictures that show how to tell.