The Anticipation is Too Much!

[wildone]

thats sad.

 

[CapricornFarm]

Well the saga is over guys, the chick died.

So sorry. One chick is so lonely by itself!

 

[Gail The Quail]

I just hatched my first Coturnix quails. The entire process has been so fun. SonoranChick I totally agree with you about all of the worries. I've had the exact same ones.
On Day 17 of incubation, I called the store to ask about the failure of any hatching. They told me to wait a couple more days. Two hours later, and for the next 8 hours, 11 of them hatched. We had a house full of guests celebrating my dad's 91st birthday. What a fun party event it was! The next day I moved them to the brooder. Then the following morning, on the 19th day, I woke up to find 5 more chicks in the incubator. And yes, of course, I had been worried about opening the incubator to transfer the first batch, and harming the remaining eggs. As you can see it all worked out fine.
wildone, I love that you said, "my little ones just got out of the adorable fluffy stage, and into the scrawny teenage stage." That's exactly where mine are now. I wasn't able to describe the stage they're at. "Scrawny teenage stage" is perfect! It's only been just over a week and they've grown so much. They are already able to fly to the top of the big rubbermaid storage box. While cleaning the brooder (3 times a day.....using paper towels as their flooring) they must be attended to while I have to screen cover off in fear that one of them will fly over.
I need to set up a second brooder. The current one is too small for all 16. It's a 66 quart box. Does anyone have any suggestions for a brooder box to handle 16 rapidly growing quails? Will I need to have several storage bins? I had read that the bin will look small when you first put the chicks in and that they grow quickly. I had no idea that they grew soooo quickly.