Paneubert's Quail Aviary Adventure

[paneubert]

Yeah, I noticed they like light. When I shine a flashlight in there they seem to get excited. I moved these 4 to the brooder earlier today. Went to the in-laws for a few hours and came back to 3 more babies. I noticed a few more eggs with beaks sticking out, or at least eggs rocking, so I am going to hold off on transferring these latest three until a few more hatch. Humidity is staying around 60 to 70 even after I open the incubator, so I am not worried about shrink wrap. I am using a ceramic IR bulb, so no light to deal with related to their heat. I do have a regular CFL bulb shining in the general direction of the brooder in the garage, but it is meant for a soft nightlight effect and not actual light. Just so they can find their food and water at night if they want to. It is weak enough light that the webcam I have pointed at the brooder is using its night vision setting by default.

 

[paneubert]

They are growing up so fast.... This is during a brooder cleaning. Not their normal housing.

 

[Binki]

Hehehehe awww they look good!!

 

[paneubert]

And the adventure begins again! Decided to try to hatch some of the color variations. Really impressed with the shipping on these eggs! Especially since it was from Ebay and not a "classic" company. Individually bubble wrapped, packed in shredded paper, with another bubble wrap on the outside walls and floor of the box. Bought 36, they sent 41. Only one that looked cracked, but I still incubated it since it looked hairline cracked and not necessarily broken.

Also tossed in 13 of my own eggs. Let me tell you a fun story about that...... I was being super careful not to jostle my homegrown eggs. Ended up dropping a padlock on them/the plastic holder and a few went flying. But did not see any broken eggs when I stopped swearing. So I still put all 13 in there. Not sure what will happen with those. Might toss in another days worth tomorrow just to be safe and still keep the hatches on time/close to each other.

Going to try to use a sponge this time around for humidity control. I dampened it a bit and I am reading 70%. Yikes! But this is from right after I got the incubator started back up and only a short while after I did the salt test/calibration that would cause it to be around 75%. Lets hope it goes down. Hahaha.

 

[Binki]

And the adventure begins again! Decided to try to hatch some of the color variations. Really impressed with the shipping on these eggs! Especially since it was from Ebay and not a "classic" company. Individually bubble wrapped, packed in shredded paper, with another bubble wrap on the outside walls and floor of the box. Bought 36, they sent 41. Only one that looked cracked, but I still incubated it since it looked hairline cracked and not necessarily broken.

Also tossed in 13 of my own eggs. Let me tell you a fun story about that...... I was being super careful not to jostle my homegrown eggs. Ended up dropping a padlock on them/the plastic holder and a few went flying. But did not see any broken eggs when I stopped swearing. So I still put all 13 in there. Not sure what will happen with those. Might toss in another days worth tomorrow just to be safe and still keep the hatches on time/close to each other.

Going to try to use a sponge this time around for humidity control. I dampened it a bit and I am reading 70%. Yikes! But this is from right after I got the incubator started back up and only a short while after I did the salt test/calibration that would cause it to be around 75%. Lets hope it goes down. Hahaha.

Ohhh good luck on round two the salt test?

That packing is impressive! I don't have experience with shipped eggs but from what little I've seen, I haven't seen that

 

[paneubert]

the salt test?

Calibrating my hygrometers. If you take some salt, dampen it just so it is wet but not dissolved, then close in a bag with your hygrometers, it should read 75% humidity. I do not know why. But it is science. Mine were pretty accurate. One said 75-76% and the other I think was around 72%. I could not test the built in hygrometer since it would mean turning on the heat to the incubator as well, but I tested my two extras to see what they read.

 

[paneubert]

On another note, a sponge might not be the best for fine tuning humidity. I squirted 6ml of water thru the air hole onto the sponge today and it went from low 20% to 60%. Yikes.... I guess I will let it drop and then see what only 3ml does. Experimentation.

 

[Binki]

On another note, a sponge might not be the best for fine tuning humidity. I squirted 6ml of water thru the air hole onto the sponge today and it went from low 20% to 60%. Yikes.... I guess I will let it drop and then see what only 3ml does. Experimentation.

Hmm humidity is based on surface area and I guess due to absorption the sponge has many places for the moisture to travel to making it evaporate more rapidly, making the humidity rise with very little water... reducing the amount by half may cause a similar jump but possibly causing a very quick drop in humidity when it dries up twice as fast as last time

You could used a deep plastic tray so the surface area of the water would be consistent for a few days, could put some small hardware cloth to cover it to prevent drowning if the babies can reach it, one time I tried to seperate the eggs in plastic trays within the incubator when I took them out of the turner for lockdown. The quail were escaping out of their couple of inch tall trays and hopping into other trays xD

I was going to make an incubator myself and was going to use a plastic tray that had muffins in it, so every inch or so there was a deep circle I could fill with water, figured it would probably take 2-4 circles to get the humidity where I wanted it

That's really cool about the hygrometer calibration using salt, did you calibrate your thermometers? I've watched videos on people doing it with those metal meat thermometers and turning the screw or whatnot after putting it in boiling/ice cold water but haven't had a problem with my built in thermometer (for my couple of hatches) so haven't changed/tested anything.

 

[paneubert]

I have not calibrated the thermometers beyond seeing that they read about the same when in my house when sitting near my furnace thermostat. Also, when I did the salt test for humidity, that was with two combo thermometer/hygrometers. So I could see that they read about the same temp (and also same humidity).

The crappy part is neither my built in thermometer nor hygrometer can be easily tested since their cords are so short and built in to the lid of my incubator. I suppose I could do the salt test IN my incubator, but doing a temp test wont work no matter where since my main thermometers are not meant to be submerged/wet.

 

[paneubert]

New idea/project forming in my head due to the (hopeful) hatching of some new colors.... Hutches within hutches within hutches within aviaries. Haha. If I get anything cool looking, I need a way to selectively breed. Why not build within my existing aviary? The boring guys can live on the ground while the cool kids get the penthouse apartments. This location actually makes any building job easier since the aviary is already secure from predators and dry (if you ignore my rat problems...). This is a really old photo, but everything is still generally where you see it. If I go with this plan, I will move the dog house and dismantle their dust bath. That way I can spread lots of sand and PDZ under there for easy cleaning. It is right against our house, so also the driest part of the aviary. Probably don't even need a solid roof....could go wire on all sides with a simple wooden frame.