Quail Incubation Help

[TheCakeIsAWolf]

Hey y'all, I'm at the very beginning of day 20 incubating a quail egg and I had not seen any movement until today when I noticed that the egg had shifted from its original position and there was some dried leakage from a safety hole on the egg. The chick hasn't pipped externally yet. I'm wondering if I should be worried?

 

[Cragg Klefor]

Sorry I can't offer any suggestions, no experience in incubation/hatching but if you post in this forum you will find many with experience
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/incubating-hatching-eggs.5/
Good luck!

 

[H@tcher]

Hey y'all, I'm at the very beginning of day 20 incubating a quail egg and I had not seen any movement until today when I noticed that the egg had shifted from its original position and there was some dried leakage from a safety hole on the egg. The chick hasn't pipped externally yet. I'm wondering if I should be worried?

Give us a little more information. What incubator, what's the temp. been, humidity and what kind of quail? 20 days is pushing it but can still happen.

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[TheCakeIsAWolf]

Give us a little more information. What incubator, what's the temp. been, humidity and what kind of quail? 20 days is pushing it but can still happen.

Good luck and keep us posted.

The brand sticker fell off it years ago but it's a styrofoam incubator with a fan which I installed. Temp's been primarily between 98.5-100.5 but has had one spike to 102 for a short period. Humidity was around 40% for the first days and then upped to 55-60% at lockdown. This egg is a coturnix quail. I know that it was alive 2 days into lockdown and I'm wondering if it was at least still alive yesterday when the egg moved from the position it was in?

 

[H@tcher]

The brand sticker fell off it years ago but it's a styrofoam incubator with a fan which I installed. Temp's been primarily between 98.5-100.5 but has had one spike to 102 for a short period. Humidity was around 40% for the first days and then upped to 55-60% at lockdown. This egg is a coturnix quail. I know that it was alive 2 days into lockdown and I'm wondering if it was at least still alive yesterday when the egg moved from the position it was in?

Temp. and humidity sounds good, assuming you are using calibrated instruments. 102 shouldn't hurt anything. Have you candled the egg? Also, you mentioned leakage. And what is a safety hole?

 

[Anorakei]

I hatched 5 quail recently, the last one to hatch did so on day 20, so late hatches are definitely possible. Once they're ready to hatch they'll break out of their egg from the inside.

Never heard of a "safety hole" in any of my research on incubating quail. What's the purpose of that?

 

[TheCakeIsAWolf]

Unfortunately the little guy didn't make it. Thank you all so much for responding.

A safety hole is a precautionary measure taken to make sure a chick will have enough oxygen to get out of the egg if they don't externally pip for a long period after internally pipping. It's a very small hole made from the outside of the shell into the air cell. I had a buddy that would make them on more valuable eggs just before lockdown. Unfortunately I made it too late for this little chick.