Share your shipped egg incubation stats so we can compare!

[artbykarenehaley]

It's lock down day for us, on our first batch of button quail eggs that we ordered from Burton's Pirogue Aviaries on ebay. I'm interested to see if anyone else is also incubating eggs recently shipped
Stats
Egg source: Burton's Pirogue Aviaries
Species: Button Quail
Origin: Missouri
Destination: Oregon
Shipping condition on arrival: box appeared to be in good condition, eggs were well wrapped. They were placed in a cardboard egg carton, surrounded by sawdust, wrapped inside a bubble mailer, which was placed inside a box padded with more bubble mailers and other packing materials.
Amount ordered: 15

Received: 20, two had hairline cracks in them only detected via candling prior to setting

Amount of eggs set: 18

Time allowed for these eggs to rest: 12 hours

Time and date set: 12:00 am March 12th

Incubator used: Little Giant Forced Air incubator with egg turner, quail rails installed.

Temperature: consistent 99.5 to 100.00 degrees

Humidity: has been between 60% to 70%

Fertility rate: so far all eggs have developed and appear to be alive. 4/18 have egg shells too dark to see through more than the pointy end, but veins are visible even on these dark eggs.

Hatch results: To Be Determined

Other notes: I have incubated eggs before but this is our first time using this incubator. So far it has been doing great. I have tested it with three other thermometers and humidity meters and it's sensor does appear to be reading accurately. It was a birthday present from my husband and I am so excited to hatch these eggs! The incubator is in our dining room which stays around 68 to 70 degrees.

I will update this thread as things progress and I hope others will share their experiences. Feel free to use the stat format I used above, I'll leave a blank version here. Of course change it if you can think of other things to include!

Stats:
Egg source:

Species and Breed:

Origin location:

Destination location:

Shipping condition on arrival:

Amount ordered:

Received:

Amount of eggs set:

Time allowed for these eggs to rest:

Time and date set:

Hatch result:

Incubator used:

Temperature:

Humidity:

Fertility rate:

Other notes:

 

[cmobley]

I just done a lavender orpington hatch. I ordered 24 lavender eggs from meyer they sent 26 3 were broken. I set 23 eggs 16 made it to lock down and 13 hatched. I rested mine 24 hours and kept my humidity 45ish during incubation and 70ish during lockdown. I did hatch out a black with my lavenders I contacted meyer they offered a refund or store credit because their line is only suppose to throw lavenders. Overall im very happy with my purchase and how Meyer handled my few problems.

 

[artbykarenehaley]

I just done a lavender orpington hatch. I ordered 24 lavender eggs from meyer they sent 26 3 were broken. I set 23 eggs 16 made it to lock down and 13 hatched. I rested mine 24 hours and kept my humidity 45ish during incubation and 70ish during lockdown. I did hatch out a black with my lavenders I contacted meyer they offered a refund or store credit because their line is only suppose to throw lavenders. Overall im very happy with my purchase and how Meyer handled my few problems. View attachment 2583510

I'm glad you had success with your hatch! 13 is a pretty good amount. I wonder if the black chick is a mix up from a different batch of eggs, or if it came from their lavender orpington line as an outlier. It's good that they offered to refund or credit you based on that. I have been considering ordering eggs from Meyer, so thank you for sharing!

 

[artbykarenehaley]

We have now removed the egg turner and candled the eggs for the last time. All 18 that were set are still developing!

 

[artbykarenehaley]

As an update to the shipped egg incubation, I want to mention that when I removed the quail rails and placed the eggs and secondary thermometer on the floor of the incubator, I had to increase the temperature on my incubator's thermostat from 99.5 to 103.0. the secondary thermometer is reading right at 99.5 to 100 now, and I do know this thermometer is accurate. I read to do this in the incubator's instructions and so far as long as I have been following the directions I received, everything has been going smoothly. I have also added a second sponge to increase the humidity based on the instructions that Burton's Pirogue Aviaries included with the eggs. The only variable that could potentially mess things up is that I received an order of chicken eggs earlier than I expected and ended up setting them in the incubator. I will detail that batch later on. Hopefully things go okay with those eggs. They were in a terribly battered box an I let them rest for 24 hours, then candled them to check on their air sacs situation. I have about four that look iffy.

 

[artbykarenehaley]

Here's another shipped egg incubation experiment, and I'm taking a risk here setting these in an occupied incubator that is currently on lockdown. I had to decide to either let them go bad while waiting for these quail to hatch, or set them. This was due to an error on my part, as I should have requested when I ordered the eggs to have them ship at a later date. I neglected to do so and when the auction ended they were packed and sent. That was my fault. They were shipped promptly and arrived without damage. Here are the stats on these eggs:

Stats
Egg source: Breeder is eBay seller bwi_bow_iwyzalavq

Species and Breed: Standard Chicken, White Faced Black Spanish

Origin location: Virginia

Destination location: Oregon

Shipping condition on arrival: Box was damaged, eggs arrived uncracked. Each egg was wrapped individually in two layers of bubble wrap. Four eggs have saddled air sacs. Two are severe. The rest have air sacs in their proper place.

Amount ordered: 10

Received: 11

Amount of eggs set: 11

Time allowed for these eggs to rest: 24, but they will be unturned for the first few days of incubation. I have had incubations in the past with success where the eggs were set round end up and not turned for the first few days. I am giving these eggs extra time to sit still so their sacs can settle some more, plus the incubator is on lock down for a current clutch of quail eggs.


Time and date set: 11:00 am March 25th 2021

Hatch result: To Be Determined

Incubator used: Little Giant forced air incubator

Temperature: 99.5

Humidity: 70% (set during quail egg lockdown, will be decreased after the quail are removed)

Fertility rate: To be Determined.

Other notes: the eggs are currently set on silicone rings with the rounded end pointed up. After these quail eggs hatch they will be candled and placed on the automatic egg turner with the chicken egg rails. I am attempting a still set, where the first few days I don't move the eggs. Partly because they had a rough ride, partially because I have no other choice due to the incubator being currently occupied. Wish these babies luck! The photos of their parents on the ebay listing shows some gorgeous birds and my son really likes this breed's looks. We plan to keep one chick, and any others will be living on my dad's farm. He saw that I have an incubator and asked me to hatch him some chicks. If this batch is unsuccessful, we will get some eggs locally and start over for him to get his flock going.

 

[artbykarenehaley]

We have about half a dozen quail eggs with tiny, barely perceptible pips. One egg was candled and the chick can be seen moving about inside in the right place. Hoping this is a good sign for the others as well! Today is day 17 or 18, depending if you count the first day or not.

 

[artbykarenehaley]

They are pipping right where the tips of these arrows are pointing. The one in the center of this photo has a white spot that you might mistake for the pip, but it's actually a very faint crack right where the arrow is pointing. I occasionally see it lift. This is the egg I have candled and this little baby is working hard in there! Come-on cutie, you can do it!

 

[artbykarenehaley]

If anyone is out there who has hatched quail eggs before, how long does it take before a tiny pip progresses to a hatch? Six eggs just barely pipped yesterday and there is a new one today. I'd say it has been almost 18 hours for the first egg, and there is still only a tiny crack. It does occasionally wiggle... Am I watching so obsessively that I am seeing super early signs most don't see? or are my quail attempting to hatch but slipping around due to high humidity or something?
Humidity is currently 68%, last night around 10 pm it spiked to 74% and then through the night slowly dropped back down to 68% where it has been hovering since lockdown.

 

[artbykarenehaley]

We now have a lot of quail chicks, and are still getting pipped eggs! We are up to ten that are hatched. Nine are in the brooder. One has just emerged from it's egg. They all have names already

george, looks like a cinnamon?

pip, first to hatch, March 28th at 2:30 ish

sonny, definitely a white button quail! So cute. More photos to come!