Question about incubating quail eggs in a Brinsea octagon

[CorgiHouse]

Hi,
New here to the quali forum. I've hatched, raised, and kept chickens but have never raised or kept any quail. I am looking into getting some eggs to hatch so that I can raise some for meat. I'm going to start out small - maybe a couple dozen eggs - as a test run. So I've been reading this forum to learn all I can, and think I have the info I need for incubating, hatching, brooding, feeding, etc. But I have one question for the Brinsea incubator owners here:

Since I've only seen pics of the Coturnix eggs, I'm not really sure just how small they are, and I'm not sure if the 'regular' egg rails will work. Can I use those for the quail eggs, or do I need to get quail rails??

Thanks!

 

[backyardcovey]

The rails in my Oct 20 are adjustable.

 

[Fat Daddy]

I use the Eco 20 and the wires work ok. I use quail egg cartons, and set the wires to hold them tight. Works great and holds the egg in a more upright position. Only draw back is cuts down on the room if you intend to hatch in it too. You can still get 60 or so in there without stacking. Bill

 

[Denninmi]

The rails are adjustable, but kind of a pain, IMHO. They are just metal rod things which you are supposed to insert a piece of foam into for cushion. I don't like them.

What I did this last time was just pack the thing full of eggs so there was no room to roll around. I had so many I had to do a partial second layer. Then, I slipped it all into a mesh bag from lemons, and used some big rubber bands to hold it all together. Worked great. I had about 62/63 out of slightly over 100 total eggs hatch. It was a mixed batch, about half Coturnix and half Buttons.

I thought that was really good, considering some were as much as 4 to 5 weeks old when I set them, and some of the Coturnix had been exposed to outside air temps as cold as 8-10 degrees.

If I wanted to do fewer than a full tray, I still think I would forget the rails. Either just use egg cartons to set them, or push them together as I did and find something like some crumpled aluminum foil to fill up the void.

The rails are OK for bigger eggs, but a real pain in the rear for quail eggs.

 

[CorgiHouse]

Thanks for all the great suggestions and ideas!