Well in each of the last couple of hatches I've had a chick who seemed to have zipped a good amount but then couldn't go much further. This is after a chick was successfully hatched on its own. We peeled them out after waiting for 16+ hours with no progress. Ones doing great but the more recent one is a little wry legged on one side but doing better every day. So we did open up the bator to remove a chick each time due to the amount of time the second egg was taking (last couple of batches were 2 eggs each) but tried to be quick and the humidity was pumped up to 60-70. Is it just that we're drying out the pipped eggs by opening the bator? How long can I leave the hatched quail to cool their heels in there?
I leave mine in for at least 12 hours, but they can stay in there for as long as 24 hrs. I try not to open the door much during hatching but you have to sometimes. If you have a harge amount of eggs I would not keep the ones that have a hard time hatching, but if you only have a couple eggs in at a time and want to save as many as possible you CAN pull these chicks out of the shells with some degree of success - the trick is not to pull the umbillical cord out or cause too much bleeding. I find about half of the ones I pull from the shell survive healthily but there are some that bleed too much and either die or can't get up. I usually set my timer at the time of the first one hatching and if there are still birds struggling to come out after 24 hours, I pull them. Thing is these are not great birds to breed from because you don't want to pass on any genes that contrbute to poor hatching.
