Quail failure - Updated Again - Bad

[Epona142]

I'm feeling so down and frustrated.

I REALLY wanted to raise quail. I thought about it forever, made plans for beautiful pens, couldn't wait to have some for the dinner table.

But I apparently cannot hatch quail for anything.

My first batch was 45 eggs, I hatched five healthy quail, who are my special pets and are producing eggs right now. I know what went wrong that time, my thermometer was off. Not to mention I heard bad things about hatching quail in a LG.

Okay, try number two! First, half the 50 eggs came broken courtesy of USPS. So I put the rest in my new old metal Brower and hand turned them.

I got six I believe, five of which have made it being feathered out and getting big.

The seller of the second set sent me some more to make up for the broken eggs, and were due to hatch a couple days ago. And I've got one tiny lonely quail.

I don't know if I have the heart to try again. I see threads about how hardy quail are, and how many people get to hatch and I just feel like such a failure.

Sorry for the whine fest.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

deleted

 

[monarc23]

yes please dont give up!!! it can be a challenge sometimes but please dont.

makes me sad because i know how much joy these fluff butts bring me.


and steve for future reference its : with "hugs" connected to make

 

[DLS]

Try again. It is spring & maybe carma will kick in

 

[Epona142]

I may try, but its hard to convince myself to spend the money to buy more eggs when now I feel like its not worth it to get just a few chicks.

I have some eggs saved up from mine, some are a bit old but its worth a shot instead of spending money to get more eggs I guess.

 

[Bettacreek]

Definately try on your eggs. I understand how you feel, I stopped keeping track of my purchases, because of how much I've spent already. You're at least one step ahead of me, your birds are actually reproducing, mine are a bunch of free-loaders.

 

[Teach97]

I had several bad hatches at first and broken eggs as well. A big part of it is learning to use your equipment. Sorry to say but it is a trial and error kind of thing. Shipped eggs offer more challenges but it can work! Look for deals...prices vary greatly...ask questions about how long they are holding the eggs before shipping. Folks disagree on how long you can hold them but the fresher the better. Look around and see if you can't find a few local birds. So much easier to get going once you have a few birds producing and you can learn to hatch those and figure out what needs to be done with your equipment.

 

[Bettacreek]

Eww. I went through my paypal to calculate the last of the eggs I've purchased, and, omg, I've spent a freaking fortune...

$565.30

That's just since January. That does include the chickens, coturnix, buttons, their food, cages, bedding, oystershell, incubator, hatcher etc, etc. God, don't tell my hubby! And, I can't get a single bird to lay eggs, except those darned doves, who're laying infertile eggs. Even if my coturnix start laying, they'll all be table eggs, as I have no roos (unless the A&M is a roo, I've been watching, but no activity so far). I really need someone to start laying, hopefully I can bring a few dollars back in for some fertile eggs.

Free-loaders.

 

[monarc23]

Quote:
ouchieee i figured out prices just for my coturnix so far a while back but yep no point in figuring that out this time of year...because im selling RIR chicks this weekend and that money is going back into some more eggs

 

[Bettacreek]

Lol. I just put an ad up for the older silkie, the serama, partridge silkie (don't really want to part with this one) and three of the bantam EE's. I'm not sure if I'm charging too much or not, but I put them at $5 per chick, $6 for the serama and I think $7 or $8 for the 7 week old silkie. Locally, most people have been selling for about $5 a chick. Anyways, that'll lessen my feed bill a little bit, appease the hubby a big bit and maybe bring in a few bucks. Probably going to try to sell off any extra coturnix that hatch from my 19 eggs, instead of butchering them, just to try to recoup *something*. Gah, and, ya know what, I didn't calculate the coturnix eggs that I'm testing, or the bantam lavendar arucanas! Luckily, I did already calculate the bantam assortment from the auction thread... I'll keep one lavendar, one or two from the bantam assortment, depending on what I get and sell the rest. I really should put my little sizzle up too, since I will have a pure silkie and a pure cochin, but, well, I *like* the little guy. Maybe it'll turn out to be a roo, or the silkie will be...


ETA: Sorry for the hijack... lol.