Snowflake Sitting On "Add-on" Coturnix Eggs

[Gretchen Nixon]

Help! My snowflake quail Ginger started sitting on her fifteen eggs last week but her step-sister Helen Keller laid two eggs
in her nest and she is a coturnix. Should I remove Helen's eggs? I have a Home Depot Summerhawk coop and the nesting box is upstairs. Should I put some food and water up there for the chicks? I only started quails in June.

 

[dc3085]

I wouldn't worry about the coturnix eggs. At this point it's still a very very long shot that she will actually complete incubation successfully and even if she does, she won't care about a couple weird looking babies.

 

[DK newbie]

If she can cover all the eggs, it shouldn't be a problem, but if you can remove the other eggs without disturbing her(when she is out feeding), I would do so, just to make sure she will be able to cover all her eggs even if the other quail lays more eggs in her nest.
There is no need to put feed and water there, if you just check on her a couple of times a day when the chicks are due to arrive - the chicks don't need to feed as soon as they hatch, you have several hours to discover their existence. I'm more worried about other quail in the coop. Should you be lucky and get chicks, I'd either monitor them very closely to make sure they don't kill the chicks, or just keep them away from the chicks altogether from the start.

 

[Gretchen Nixon]

Why would they kill them?

 

[DK newbie]

Well.. We have a male duck that will eat his own offspring the first few days, till they get too big, should he get the chance. I could try to explain that biologically by some far-fetched explanation about him perceiving that the ducklings will become his direct competitors for food or females in the future, or that he simply lacks protein in his diet, but to me it just seems plain stupid ^^
Your quail doesn't necessary have to be directly attempting to kill the chicks, to cause their death. They might just be curious and try pecking at them to find out what they are - and then peck a bit too much. Or they might step on them. Or the chicks might go to the wrong quail for heat and end up dying because that quail won't sit on them.
That being said, I have buttons - 3 hens and one roo. One hen hatched chicks, another one was broody too and helped take care of the chicks. I put the 3. hen in a cage inside their enclosure for the first week or so, because she was pecking at the toes of the chicks, but when I removed her cage, she actually ended up helping with the chicks as well. But I've heard about other buttons killing chicks that were not their own, or even button roos killing their own chicks(my roo helped caring for them as soon as they hatched).
I've never had bob whites or coturnix though, and as those rarely hatch chicks on their own, I haven't read much about how you might expect them to react to chicks - I actually don't think I've read a single account of bob whites or coturnix that were in an enclosure with chicks that were not their own. Thus, I can't say it wouldn't work - and therefore I suggest you monitor closely if you try it.

 

[dc3085]

I wouldn't try to re-invent the wheel. People use all kinds of broody birds to hatch other species. Leave the coturnix eggs alone if you haven't moved them. In fact leave everything in the cage alone if you really want her to continue brooding. Doing anything in that cage is messing with a process that only happens once in a million and if you screw it up, you may never get another chance. The main concern is don't assume your bird has any idea what it's doing. Domestication has ruined a lot of their instincts. If the mother hatches any chicks keep an eye on her and if she seems unfit, pull them.