Hi all, I just had a question about my quail. If my OEGB hen decides to go broody, my Coturnix quail decide to start laying again, and I get a new male Coturnix (my last two died) would I be able to incubate quail eggs under a chicken? Are the temperatures the same? Will it offer even a small percentage hatch? Thanks!
If the eggs are fertile, they will all hatch. Make sure you put the eggs in when the hen starts the long-term sitting. All female birds have an innate instinct of when their eggs are supposed to hatch. If the incubation goes too long (i.e. you putting eggs 10 days after the hen already started sitting), the bird will abandon the nest.
There has been successful stories about bantam's hatching out quail chicks so there will definitely be some percentage hatching if she sits for the whole incubation period, however I would be very careful. Once the broody mama gets off her nest, she may accidentally squish one of the tiny quail chicks with her giant foot. The percentage of the hatch will vary, depending on the fertility of the egg, the viability of the egg, the conditions in which the eggs are in, and so on. There isn't really a 100% that all the eggs will hatch, most cases would be around 30% - 90% hatching. If you want to have the most chicks hatch healthier, your best bet would be using an incubator. A broody hen isn't the most reliable source. I'm not sure what the temperatures would be like, but I would presume it would be the same temperature that would be needed for a chicken chick. Here's a lovely short video of a broody chicken hatching out some cots.
Just be on top of it and yank them as soon as they hatch. A member just a couple weeks ago had her bantam step on some of the chicks it was hatching and give them spraddle leg. Keep in mind chickens often carry disease in their digestive tracts and some of the diseases they are known to carry are fatal to quail.
