Should I Incubate Or No?

[oshaii]

Hello all

First time King (button) Quail owner, I got my pair when they were chicks and they grew up together, however, as luck would have it, I happened to get a male and a female. A few weeks ago, the male started his "mmm come here bby let me tap dat" parade to her, and she was very unwelcoming to him - revving and charging at him to keep him at bay.

We separated the two into two separate cages (they are house birds and live a very comfortable life) and she is VERY happy to be on her own and have her space, while he is constantly in a fit of wanting to get to her and make some bebbies.

I came home just earlier to find that she's laid her very first egg. Wow it's big, how do they pop those things out?

Here's where my dilemma is. I don't know if, before we managed to separate them, the male actually mated her or not. I don't know if she's preggers or not, or if that egg is fertile.
Furthermore, I heard that button quail will lay one egg a day before they actually start sitting on them, and being that it's Winter here, I'm worried that the egg will go cold (if it is fertile) and die before she starts to brood.

What should I do? Take the egg out and set up an incubator (something I've never done before, so advice would be marvellous on that!)? Or just leave it there and let her do her thing? And should I try not to touch her or interact with her while she's laying this clutch? Note, she's very tame and loves to sit on me and chill out.

Any advice on the situation would be most welcome, thank you!

 

[donrae]

Well, the first thing you need to decide is if you want more birds. Being as these are house pets, I'm thinking you'd want to limit their numbers, but I could be wrong. You'll need a plan for what to do with the offspring, and keep in mind that 50% will be males. Are you keeping them all in the house, separate cages for each gender or each bird? Are they in the yard? Are you eating some? Just need to work that out before you decide to incubate at all. If you don't want more birds, simply take the eggs and eat them.

Birds and their eggs are designed to reproduce like this: the hen lays an egg once a day or so until she gets enough of a clutch and her hormones trigger her to set on the eggs and brood them. The eggs she lays just wait in the nest for her to be ready to brood. They're not developing until she starts keeping them warm, they're in stasis so to speak. I don't know how large a clutch quail usually brood, but say a chicken hen does 12. She starts on a Monday, lays mostly an egg a day, skips a day or two along the way, and winds up 2 weeks later going broody. Once she starts setting on all the eggs, they start developing. The entire clutch needs to be started incubating at once, so they all hatch together. Putting eggs in a brooder one at a time as they're laid makes for chicks hatching daily over a period of time, and that's usually disastrous during the lock down part of incubating.

So, if you decide you want more birds, I'd just leave her eggs in her little nest and see if nature takes it's course and she goes broody. That will give you time to research building an incubator if you chose to go that route.