quail pips

[Cornychick]

This is my first time hatching coturnix eggs. Last night I had several pips by 6pm. This morning there are more pips but none zipping yet. Do they take as long as chickens to start zipping?

 

[zaylinda]

My recent first hatch took over 24 hours to begin zipping.
Once they started, though, it only took them half an hour to be out of the eggs and flailing around the incubator.
Good luck with your hatch!
-Zay

 

[Cornychick]

Holy cow! I can't wait!

 

[Quail27]

I hatched my first baby three days ago.
I used old eggs, so only one out of 7 hatched.
The baby opened up the shell all around like a pro, and very fast, but then must have gotten tired because he/she didn't emerge for many hours. I finally helped him/her out and I'm glad I did because the membrane was so dry that the baby was practically plaster of paris dipped.
So my advice to you is to keep an eye out and make sure that nobody is getting stuck, and if your incubator has the ability to increase the humidity, do so!

Weirdest thing is that one of the other eggs looked to be pipping, but after a couple of days with no further action, I opened it up to find a runny yolk.

 

[Cornychick]

Quote:
That is weird. I candled all of them right before I put them in lockdown. I have kept the humidity up the whole time. In fact it was in the mid 70's when I left the house this morning. I hope I did everything right up till now!

 

[smallbluejellybean]

I had the runny yolk thing too and dried out membrains on dead chicks.
Its normal to loose some and candling is never 100 percent accurate with quail eggs as they are so thick and dark.
Just before lockdown I get a nice warm bowl of water (100C - 39F) I test it with the kids themometer to check its not to cold or hot. I then place each egg in the water. If it floats and wiggles its alive!!! Yippie(cool to see) - If it sinks to the bottom (it will be one of the yolk ones)throw them out and if it floats and doesn't wiggle keep it anyways in the incubator, but away from the wigglers. They were my (maybe) eggs and I had 6 of those and 2 still hatched, the other 4 were rotten eggs (so they floated weird on their side). Refloated after two days after the others hatched, then openned them yukkk.
Do not keep the egg in the water more than a minute as the chick will stop receiving air. This system seemed to be far more accurate to me than candling was.
Also you need to keep an eye on the eggs. If it looks like it has pipped and hasn't progressed on after 12 hours I would assist. I left a couple a little too long around 24 hours and their membrain dried out and they died. I really couldn't understand why as the humidity in the incubator was between 70 and 75 percent at hatching time. I increased it by about 10 percent at lockdown.
I also had a couple of chicks that did hatch, but had a tiny amount of yolk still not absorbed into them. I just left those guys a little longer in the incubator and after a couple of hours they absorbed it all.
You can also listen to your eggs. If they are beginning to hatch you can hear them pecking and sometimes tweeting (very cute).
Hope I could help you guys a little. I loved hatching my eggs and have another lot going in there at the moment.

 

[Cornychick]

Thank you. I have one more hour to go before I get to check on them. This is gonna drive me nuts!

 

[Cornychick]

Pics of the babies I ended up with.....