Paneubert's Quail Aviary Adventure

[paneubert]

Here is a new one.......stick with me now.....

Anyone watch cop/crime shows like CSI where they will take super glue and evaporate it in a chamber to get it to stick to fingerprints? So yeah......an incubator can do the same thing. Hahaha. Here is my story....

I needed more air flow in my incubator. Decided to glue an extra ducted fan to the side of the heating element to blow some air around.

I confirmed that the original heater and fan does suck in air and then spit it out all 4 sides, thru the heater coil, in theory distributing the heat. But it is so slow and low of a flow that I could barely feel the breeze at all. So I super glued a ducted fan so that it sucks in from right next to the heating coils and blows towards the "bottom/front" of the incubator. Not blowing "down" to the floor, but "down" along the roof from where the heater is located in the upper third of the lid towards the lower 2/3rds of the lid where I have always seen much lower temps. Now that I know how low/slow the original fan is, I am not surprised I had so much variation in temp. The output from the ducted fan is way higher, so it should equalize the temps really well. I also like that I can direct the flow along the roof so that it hopefully catches and mixes the warmest air with all the air down at egg level without literally blowing down vertically onto the eggs below the fan. I figure if I keep the humidity at a good %, then the increased air flow should not cause issues......120 eggs being delivered Wednesday, so we will see! I figure it can't hurt..... I hope.

Kinda hard to see, but the entire side that is facing in towards the center fan/heater is open and sucks in air. Then there is a small square outlet that is right up against the "roof". I think with the amount of flow it puts out, it will blow down to the bottom lip of the lid and then split both left and right, as well as down towards the eggs. Like air hitting a wall. I am going to make sure I have a thermometer both right in the path of the flow, as well as off to the side to see if there is a temp difference.

Everything looks so clean and pretty, right? We let me tell you what happens when you have a damp incubator (from cleaning it) that is closed up, set to 99.5 and let run with still "not quite dry" super glue..... You get a nice fine layer of super glue on all surfaces, including the viewing window. I thought it was just fine fog/water from the still damp Styrofoam heating up to 100 degrees.....but when it did not evaporate after a few hours, I opened things up and ran my finger on the inside of the clear window. It sort of streaked a little, but was milky. CRAP! Luckily I was able to scrub and clean most of it off the viewing window, but I gave up with it coating all the other surfaces. It won't do any long term damage luckily. But word to the wise. Don't put super glue in an active incubator until it is 100% dry/cured.

 

[paneubert]

Well, fan seems to be doing its job spreading the heat. Been running the incubator empty for a while at 99.5 with the built in probe about halfway down the left side. That obviously reads 99.5 degrees. Put an electronic thermometer at the extreme low end of the incubator, right up against the Styrofoam below the lowest row of egg cups. So furthest from the heater as possible. Have that thermometer basically in the path of the new ducted fan. That reads 99.5, or very close to it. So there ya go, success. Put the red liquid thermometer in the upper right corner, and that reads around 99. A little less precise since you have to try to judge where the red sits from an angle. So lets call that "close enough". The slightly odd reading is from a second electronic thermometer (same brand and model as the first electronic, and known to be close in calibration to the first). I have this second electronic 2 rows up from the first, and out of the direct flow of the new fan. This one reads in the low to mid 98's. This tells me the fan is for sure blowing hot air down to the extreme low end of the incubator, but not necessarily getting it to bounce back up off the bottom wall to heat the "mid-range" rows of egg cups. Still better overall than when I did not have the secondary fan, but still not perfect heating over all the locations. Once I have eggs in there I am sure the balance will shift. So I plan to just keep the thermostat at 99.5 for about 24 hours with eggs without messing with it unless I am seeing readings that are super high and risking cooking my babies.

 

[Jennrz]

Thinking about getting Quail and I've really enjoyed following your posts. Thanks!

 

[paneubert]

Thinking about getting Quail and I've really enjoyed following your posts. Thanks!

Well thank you! It has actually been really useful for me to be able to look back on prior posts to see what month or even time of year I did something. See old photos, etc... It all sorts of blur into one big experience if you don't have a "blog" like this to document it on. For example I couldn't recall what month I got my very first egg. Browsing my own posts answered that question. Haha.

 

[mdees88]

How do you like the water nipples mounted in the side of your bucket? I'm curious if they leak and much gets spilled when the quail are drinking. Do you think they could be installed in a pvc pipe? Have you used any other types of waterers (like cups)?

I have the regular nipples that mount on the bottom of a bucket and they have worked well for me. They do not leak at all but they drip some when the quail are using them. I'm trying to find a good leak/spill free solution for keeping water in my brooder.

Thanks,
Matt

 

[paneubert]

Horizontal nipples all the way. Beyond the leaks from defective parts/seals when I first built it, no leaks ever again. Not even a drop. 5 gallon bucket lasts for what seems like forever. I have never seen it get low enough to cause issues. If anything, I dump it out to clean it before it ever ran out of water naturally. They have a small little lip on them that catches any drops and the birds drink from that as well. Almost like a tiny cup waterer. They can be put into PVC, but the trick is that the diameter of the PVC has to be big enough that the curvature of the pipe is not so extreme to cause a bad seal and leaks. But that is no different than any other waterer that you would put into the side of a pipe. Cup waterer would have the same issues.

What is your brooder like? How many chicks? I have seen photos of people putting horizontal nipples into really small flat sided bottles for chicks. Like a water bottle with flat sides. Fiji brand water is one that comes to mind that I know is "square" shaped. Would work well for a brooder.

 

[mdees88]

Horizontal nipples all the way. Beyond the leaks from defective parts/seals when I first built it, no leaks ever again. Not even a drop. 5 gallon bucket lasts for what seems like forever. I have never seen it get low enough to cause issues. If anything, I dump it out to clean it before it ever ran out of water naturally. They have a small little lip on them that catches any drops and the birds drink from that as well. Almost like a tiny cup waterer. They can be put into PVC, but the trick is that the diameter of the PVC has to be big enough that the curvature of the pipe is not so extreme to cause a bad seal and leaks. But that is no different than any other waterer that you would put into the side of a pipe. Cup waterer would have the same issues.

What is your brooder like? How many chicks? I have seen photos of people putting horizontal nipples into really small flat sided bottles for chicks. Like a water bottle with flat sides. Fiji brand water is one that comes to mind that I know is "square" shaped. Would work well for a brooder.

I'm using 55 gallon totes from home depot as brooders. They are roughly 48" long and 21" wide. I keep a few inches of pine shavings in the bottom. Once the birds are about a week old I put a wire floor in inside the tote about that sits a few inches above the shavings.

I'm currently using the 1 gallon quail waterers now and they work very good. I just wanted to use some kind of cup/nipple system so I can add water from the outside of the brooder without lifting the lid and going inside it. Also all of my cages have nipples so I figured I might as well get them used to them sooner. Right now I have 30 chicks in the brooder.

Good to know yours don't leak. I may give some of them a try.

 

[RosieR]

What a great resource! I’ve mostly finished building an aviary somewhat similar to yours and was debating on what to put on the ground. How is the deep litter working for you?

 

[paneubert]

What a great resource! I’ve mostly finished building an aviary somewhat similar to yours and was debating on what to put on the ground. How is the deep litter working for you?

Deep litter works perfectly where it is kept dry. If not kept dry then I think it would benefit from some occasional stirring or turning to keep things mixed.

I have a strip of ground that is against the wire that gets rained on and it is the only part that collects a layer of poop. The rest stays very loose. That being said, I am lazy and have not tried to mix or break up that poop layer and I am sure when summer hits I will try to mix it down into the lower levels and it will work fine. But for now it looks a little gross. The quail keep the rest so loose that I sometimes have to force the door open because the quail have piled stuff against the door frame from all their scratching and digging. Every week or so I need to shovel some of the litter back away from the swinging arc of the door. They dig down a few inches and make little nests and things. I will admit it is probably about 50% poop at this point, but it is super dry and small, like somewhere between sand and tiny pebbles. No bad smells.

 

[RosieR]

Deep litter works perfectly where it is kept dry. If not kept dry then I think it would benefit from some occasional stirring or turning to keep things mixed.

I have a strip of ground that is against the wire that gets rained on and it is the only part that collects a layer of poop. The rest stays very loose. That being said, I am lazy and have not tried to mix or break up that poop layer and I am sure when summer hits I will try to mix it down into the lower levels and it will work fine. But for now it looks a little gross. The quail keep the rest so loose that I sometimes have to force the door open because the quail have piled stuff against the door frame from all their scratching and digging. Every week or so I need to shovel some of the litter back away from the swinging arc of the door. They dig down a few inches and make little nests and things. I will admit it is probably about 50% poop at this point, but it is super dry and small, like somewhere between sand and tiny pebbles. No bad smells.

That sounds excellent. My door is built to swing out not in so if it gets deep that won’t be a problem.
I was planning on partially covering the top with the plastic used for wrapping boats for the winter, but I may just cover the whole top if it will keep the ground nicer.
My 10 chicks are 3.5 weeks old so I better get moving on finishing it up lol. Then I have another 3 doz in the incubator. It’s my first hatch and a homemade incubator so I’m not expecting any astounding hatch rate but a couple would be nice