Pullet Eggsperiment

[Quispherer]

Couldn't help myself with the title haha

So. We started keeping coturnix quail with 4 chicks, ended up being 2 male 2 female. Came from the same breeder but I know they don't share parents, this is important because the girls starting laying at 5 and 6.5 weeks respectively...

So of course my kids wanted to incubate them. I figured it would be fun to see what happens. We're also encouraging the girls to go broody, again just for fun. If they hatch out chicks, we have the room to raise them or let mamas raise them, but really we don't expect much.

We had been pulling Cheetah's egg every day to eat/feed to newly hatched chicks and started pulling Sunny's the first few days she was laying, but we stopped when we decided to let them get broody. We put in 4 of Cheetah's eggs and 2 of Sunny's - her literal 2nd and 3rd egg ever - and let the incubator go.

So as of now we have those 6 in the incubator with some shipped black/banded Coturnix. They're on Day 10 and I'll be candling to remove duds today.

Any guesses as to how manly of them - if any - will develop?? Sunny's 2nd egg was slightly oversized so I have some high hopes for that one. I know the first eggs rarely work out, but given the male had already been active with both girls for about 2 weeks, I'm optimistic.

 

[Tex452]

I have a new batch of breeders just starting to lay, I think it’s 15 hens and 3 roosters, the eggs are quite a bit smaller than my grown layers, but they are starting to get the camo color, the first eggs were really small and dark grey, I decided to wait until eggs are bigger before I start hatching them.
In my experience, when we got an over sized egg from young hens it was always a double yolk.
Good luck with your hatching.

 

[Susan Skylark]

My hens started laying in that 5-6 week range on a 28% gamebird starter but 30% of my eggs were double yolk, soft shell, fairy etc. on a 21% layer feed we now get eggs at 7-9 weeks, a bit smaller for a week or two but less than 1% weirdos. Even with an active male I’m guessing your fertility won’t be great for a couple weeks and if it is a really small egg, likely infertile, if it somehow takes I’d worry about the chick not being able to make it to hatch due to lack of resources, the same goes for double yolks (too small for twins!). I’ve always wanted to try it though, but I’ve always had other eggs I wanted to hatch, let us know how it goes!