Twin Quails?

[nicoleandeliceo]

Hi, I'm new to the forum, and new to hatching chicks. One of our cortunix quails laid a larger egg than normal. It pipped on the wrong end and stopped moving for over a day. We helped it a little and found 2 dead chicks inside. One positioned towards the top, and the other toward the bottom. Is this normal to get a double chick egg? Just curious if anyone else has had this happen to them, and if so, have they survived?

 

[kazoo1111]

Well I guess that's just like getting a double yolker only its fertilized. Each year I get about 2-6 of those from one chicken so I guess it doesn't happen all the time, but I do know that it is harder for the chicks to survive; less room, less nutrients, etc.

 

[TwoCrows]

This is actually pretty rare. I have never had it happen to me. Very interesting!

 

[TwoCrows]

Oh and welcome to BYC!

 

[dc3085]

Hi, I'm new to the forum, and new to hatching chicks. One of our cortunix quails laid a larger egg than normal. It pipped on the wrong end and stopped moving for over a day. We helped it a little and found 2 dead chicks inside. One positioned towards the top, and the other toward the bottom. Is this normal to get a double chick egg? Just curious if anyone else has had this happen to them, and if so, have they survived?

Never seen it happen before. Hope you took a picture.

 

[nicoleandeliceo]

I didn't take a pic because, well, it was my first time seeing dead chicks. I guess I'll get used to it as time goes by. Just wondering if anyone had ever successfully hatched a double egg before, and if so, did it hatch early? did you have to help it?

 

[TwoCrows]

Generally neither of the chicks survive because there is just not enough room to grow. The chicks are genetically designed to grow at certain rates to be certain sizes. So once both of these embryo's get to a certain age, there is just not enough room inside the egg and they die. There have been cases of them both surviving, but in these conditions, the egg itself was much larger than the average egg. The chicks that do survive can have many health issues as well preventing them from surviving long. It is pretty rare however to have double yolkers develop or even make it to hatch.

 

[nicoleandeliceo]

That makes sense. Thanks so much for your replies. So next time I see an extra large egg, maybe we should just eat it, and not try to incubate it since the chances of survival are low, and no need for the little chicks to suffer.

 

[James the Bald]

I won't put an extra large egg into the incubator for those reasons. I figured that those large eggs would be better used for making an omelet than gambling on it's fertility.
Odds are you will never see two chicks in the same shell again, so if you change your mind and incubate one and it ends up having 2 chicks inside, play the lottery/power ball that night.
James

 

[sebastopol]

Twin chicks.