One of the three Dellies, hatched this morning, is in the brooder. The other two are alive, but probably a few hours, up to 24 hours, behind this one. My broody had a hard time getting settled the first day in her separate area and on occasion, let a couple cool off by having them right in front of her rather than under her. Then, finally, she abandoned the eggs at the end of Day 16.
Instead of lots of little posts every few days, this is a diary of my November hatching adventure!
The last 3+ weeks have been so hectic that I haven't had time to read all the posts OR post, and this week has been the topper! On Tuesday, October 19, I set the16 coturnix eggs that arrived on time from QuailLady on Monday..The USPS hadn't treated them well, broke 4. The eggs JJ sent me the same day didn't arrive until late Wednesday, again, 4 broken, set 16 on Thursday. I also set 42 LF eggs for BIL then. Oh... I forgot. On Monday the 18th I took 24 hopefully fertile bantam eggs from my cousin's in MD to a local pre-school class and set them in my fully automated King-Suro. Well, set 23. I am a fumble fingers
and dropped my candling flashlight into the egg tray and broke one
We used that on to show how the candling shows up cracks!
On Monday after finally getting J J's eggs in the 2nd K-Suro it tipped off the turner and toppled out 2 eggs - cracked!
Pulled'em.
On day 7 for J J's, day 10 [on Q L's, the cat knocked the top off of the Suro and the quail eggs were at room temperature for an unknown length of time, but long enough that the eggs weren't even faintly warm.
Tied a pink satin ribbon around the 'bator,
and started thinking of my first attempt at quail as 'cosmically Doomed'! This was reinforced when the Suro tipped off the turner again
the day before I put Q L's eggs in lockdown. Cracked 2 more
[actually 3 but I didn't know that until eggtopsy
rotting & leaking!!]. Ever the optimist. I put J J's eggs in with the LF 'bator and locked down Q L's.
Oh yes! Did I mention that the LF eggs were so big that NONE of my auto-turners would work?
Yup. Hand-turned that bator 'til day 18!
Day 11, off to school to candle eggs ;
The first 3 were clear so, to disappointed sighs from the 4 & 5 year olds, I explained that 'sometimes they just don't grow so I will take them home'. The next 2 were developing -- 2/3 dark -- a couple of early quitters and two??? -- "we'll leave those in just in case they are just slow". I love kids! By now I am putting the egg in front of the light beam and they are shouting either "growing" or "not growing, take it home" AND getting it right most of the time! We culled 12, left in 2 ??s and 9 developing. That night when I candled the LF eggs I pulled 18. I tried to candle the Coturnix eggs but couldn't see into them.
Popped J J's eggs in w/the others in lockdown the day before the Q L's were due to hatch. I LOVE my Suros!! They are back up to temp and humidity in 2 to 5 min after putting the top back on!
Friday last.......Hatch day for 1st batch of Coturnix
Nothing happened!
Saturday [day 18 - nothing
Sunday - day 19
decided to check an egg
Broke into the top -- yep, alive but of course, even tho' I dampened the membrane and put it back, it died
Sunday night at 11 as I was turning out lights to go to bed I saw my first quail baby
. Monday morning, 3!
Put my bator in the car [plugged into an inverter] as I would spend al day locking down preschool eggs [should have been done Saturday afternoon.......] We had to toss the 2 ??s..the kids picked right up on the fact that they had gone almost clear. By the time I got to school there were 7 quail babies and 10 more hatched during the day, so the kids DID get to see hatching eggs. Another hatched on the way home, for a total of 18 Coturnix.
We put the bantam eggs in my "picture-window" Hovabator for the hatcher and set up the brooder. Pre-school hatch due Tuesday. Didn't happen
Phone call at 7:30 yesterday morning.........."We have a baby!"
By yesterday afternoon there were 4, 3 still too damp to go to the brooder, so , since school is closed today I brought everything home. 2 more hatched last night another late this morning and the 8th is piped and zipping. Nothing with the ninth. I will take them back to the class tomorrow for the kids to see, then bring them back here. I need help identifieing them tho' I know which is the B-blk Sumatra, and am pretty sure which 2 are the B-Welsummers. 3 are OEGBs, a RBB a BLuBR and a blu/red. The 2 I am unsure of are the quail d'Uccle [none of these chix have feathered feet -- I thought all d'Uccles did? And one is all yellow with just the faintest red chipmunk stripes, the other blue with a yellow muff? The one currently hatching is a B-RIR. Will try to get pictures up so that we can all play "name that bird"Sorry about all of the typos! Had to get to an appt! Did I mention that I am going to be a [human] G-Mom in mid-March!!
I'm waiting until December. I'm going to hatch my olive eggers who is covered by a fbcm roo and an EE that I have with him too to get some more olive eggers. Right now the EE is not laying and the olive egger is pretty sporadic too. My luck they'll both stop laying when I'm ready to incubate.
Locked down yesterday and tonight 4 have hatched so far and 4 more have pipped. I use the same supplier of RIR eggs and two hatches in a row they have started hatching the day after I have went to lock down.
I lock down the cochins tomorrow. Lets see what happens there.
