Should I be seeing anything on day 16 of hatch?

[Rafnel]

Hi all,

First time quail hatcher here. I have a 10 week old male quail that started mating with a couple 16 week old females around week 6 of his life. I collected those eggs from those females for about 6 days until I got 11 eggs total at which point I began incubating them.

I'm incubating at 99.5 F and for the first 15 days the humidity was kept between 45 and 55% (it varied but was usually closer to 45%). On day 15 I took the egg turner out and increased the humidity now to 60-65% on average. It's now end of day 16 and I'm worried I just don't have any developing eggs. I didn't candle them at all because I was worried that I would disrupt them by handling them and removing from the incubator at all during the incubation period.

I took a picture of the eggs' locations yesterday and have been comparing it to their current location and I see no change, so there hasn't been any obvious movement of the eggs in the incubator. If I watch them, I don't see or hear anything happening.

Kind of wishing I had candled to know if anything was viable. I'm planning on leaving them in the incubator until day 20 in case I just have a late hatch. Is it normal to not see anything on end of day 16?

 

[Nabiki]

Thanks for the reply! Yeah I just ordered a liquid thermometer and a hydrometer to use for my next attempt. Guess I shouldn't have trusted my incubator. And to clarify I am incubating coturnix quail eggs.

Coturnix eggs do best at about 30% humidity during incubation and up to 50-60% during lockdown in my experience.

Don't give up on your current hatch until day 20 or so. I would recommend candling them as well. As long as you don't leave the incubator open, the eggs will be fine.

 

[Nabiki]

Did you trust the readings on your incubator? Incubator's lie. Always use a calibrated thermometer or three and a calibrated hygrometer.

Your humidity was a bit high for coturnix quail, but fine for other kinds. This may cause some hatching issues, but not enough to kill them all.

Candling will give you the best information, but don't start worrying yet. You may start seeing some early pups on day 16, but if this is your first hatch, you might miss them.

Good luck!
Here is an article that might help you for your next hatch. https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/coturnix-incubation-tips.76184/

 

[QuailQueen3]

You are doing great! All of your parameters are within best practices! Southwest Gamebirds and Myshire Farms are the largest hatcheries that I have found in the US. Your parameters are within their recommendations for best practices for hatching. While their parameters for humidity are a bit different from each other at lockdown, you are still within them. Both of the largest hatcheries recommend 45 degrees humidity for Days 1-14. (None recommend humidity at 30%.) You may have a hatch between days 18-20, even as late as day 22 (reportedly). Do not open the incubator for at least 24 hours after the first chick hatches (even though it is tempting, even if you see a chick having trouble hatching).

Remember, “Day 1” is a full 24 hours. So, for example, if you put your eggs into the incubator on November 21 at 6am, then “Day 1” is actually November 21 at 6am through November 22 at 6am. This concept is really important to understand. Likewise, if you don’t put your eggs into the incubator until 6pm on November 21, Day 1 doesn’t end until 6pm on November 22. I hope this helps.

Relax. It is in God’s hands at this point.

Govee reportedly makes the best Hygrometer to place in the incubator, for future hatches.

Even with the Nurture Right 360 Incubator, which is the best-rated incubator for small hatches, my Govee will go out of the recommended 99.5 degrees plus or minus a half of degree (0.5 degrees) and doesn’t seem to affect the hatch rate. Actually, messing with the factory settings and trying to correct these fluctuations in temperature seems to create more risk of raising the temperature too high. So I don’t manually adjust the temperature unless it’s lower than 98 degrees over 24 hours.

I do an eggtopsy on every hatch and don’t think my temperature or humidity has ever killed a potentially viable quail chick. Southwest Gamebirds has a good article on eggtopsy.

I wish you much success and perseverance on your journey!

 

[Rafnel]

Thanks all. I'm going to let the eggs in the incubator be for now and not candle them just so I don't screw them up while they're in lockdown. On day 20 or 21 I'll probably give up if nothing has happened and I will do eggtopsies to see if any developed at all.

 

[Nabiki]

Well I candled them last night because I was suspicious. No development in any of them. I cut all 11 of them open and they were totally undeveloped. Egg yolk and egg white looked totally the same as an undeveloped egg.

Kind of wondering if my male was even fertile yet? He has been mating for quite a few weeks now but maybe since these eggs were from his earlier weeks of mating maybe he wasn't actually making it happen yet truly?

Sad

I would suggest opening a new egg and look for the "bullseye". If there's a light spot with a ring around it, the egg is fertile. If there's just a spot, it's not.

 

[Rafnel]

Thanks for the reply! Yeah I just ordered a liquid thermometer and a hydrometer to use for my next attempt. Guess I shouldn't have trusted my incubator. And to clarify I am incubating coturnix quail eggs.

 

[Mother-Hen-Michele]

No need for sad... You had a practice run Now you know more, and will be an even better midwife to your little hatchlings. Of all the negative outcomes, that you chicksat a bunch of eggs is just sweet and tender of you. You'll be an awesome mom (when that boy of yours gets on the job!) You've proved yourself ready for motherhood

 

[Rafnel]

I would suggest opening a new egg and look for the "bullseye". If there's a light spot with a ring around it, the egg is fertile. If there's just a spot, it's not.

Oh wow! I just looked this up and found a good picture on this site to show: https://mainesconfettiquailfarm.com...ok for a bullseye on,Happy hatching, Everyone!. Thanks for the suggestion. I will open a few eggs and see if any are fertile/have been fertilized.

 

[nuthatched]

Why would I risk potentially killing a chick because I can’t see it developing? Worse yet, why would I risk killing any developing chicks by opening the incubator long enough because I am lowering the temperature and/or humidity by opening to remove and candle every egg?

Unless you drop the egg you are candling, the eggs will not be harmed/ die because of a brief candling session.
Broody mothers get up and leave the nest for a few minutes each day to take care of business, eat, drink and stretch, the cooling process is natural and some higher-end incubators even have a cooling mode to mimic this.
Candling is also to check for duds, an exploding rotten egg can ruin a batch and your day. :] It's not like you're taking the lid off and then running off to go make yourself a pizza, that's when there would be problems.