Why are my quail eggs developing but not hatching?

[GAQuail]

Incubating above 75%.  It fluctuates a lot and is hard to control.  I have the incubator in a room in my house.  The temperature is not hard to control.

That's your problem! Your not going to hatch eggs until you can get that humidity down and you need to make sure you have an accurate hygrometer.

 

[dc3085]

All the vents wide open, in a well ventilated space will help keep humidity down.

ETA: What's the ambient humidity where you live?

 

[GAQuail]

Thanks! I will give your suggestions a try. How do you control your humidity besides with the plugs?

Reduce the amount of surface area of water in the incubator and or reduce the ambient humidity in the room. If your room humidity is high you may need a dehumidifier for the room. That incubator has slots in the bottom to add water. Are you getting that high of humidity by just filling one slot with water. You may want to see what your humidity reads with no water added.

 

[broomrider]

I live in the the midwest where we are hot and humid in the summer. At the moment it's 88% and I would say it's been that way for a while as we are getting a lot of rain and it's been warm. I have water in the two side slots and the center square one. I will take some of the water out now. I have ordered the thermometer and the hygrometer.

 

[broomrider]

I can't thank you enough for the replies GA Quail and dc3085! I will keep you posted. I'm on day 2 for another 119 eggs. I don't know what the humidity in the room is but I will monitor it also. I keep the room shut up but may have to the house as well since I open the windows in the evening when it cools down.

 

[salsan20]

http://www.lrrd.org/lrrd21/3/roma21038.htm

another way to bring humidity down is rice. The uk is humid so I have the same problem, my incubator running with no water in measures 68 rh whichis too high, I found a study on rh and hatching japanese quail with something like 300 eggs, one group had low humidity 36rh one mid 52s and one high 72 rh. Higher did worse, followed by mid and lowest was best. I use open pots of rice in the room and in the incubator to bring my humidity down

 

[subhanalah]

You are going to need to remove a lot of water from the incubator.

The chick's were getting too big for their shells and couldn't turn to pip or zip.
They need to lose more moisture throughout incubation (achieved by lower humidity)

 

[broomrider]

Just finished hatching 91 eggs out of 120! Much better than before! All of them hatched in 2 days. All still alive. A big Thank You for all the help!