Why was coturnix quail hatch rate so bad??

[Crandox]

Hi so I recently bought 51 jumbo quail eggs from a hatchery and only 21 hatched, and then three died shortly after hatching because of having deformed feet. In the first stage of hatching everything was going fine, I had raised the humidity to about 65% on day 14 and it was steady there on day 17 and 18, that was when all the chicks hatched. A number of chicks hatched healthily and then boom disaster struck, the humidity dropped to about 58-63% and I couldn’t get it to go up again no matter how much water I put in and for some reason all the eggs stopped hatching and the only three that did hatch on late day 18 and day 19 had curved deformed feet, then they died. On day 19 no more eggs hatched after that and I was really bummed out, but on day 21 I went back in the incubator to see what had happened and I found a large number of very badly damaged chicks that had died during pipping. These are the pictures please tell me what went wrong. https://app.photobucket.com/u/Crandox/a/96e97b90-5012-406a-8fde-11f6a5b91b68

 

[muddy75]

Did you use a salt-tested hygrometer? Your issues appear to be result of too high humidity….the ones that didn’t hatch basically drown and the deformed feet of those that did hatch. Incubators can be way off out of the box

 

[Crandox]

Hi so I recently bought 51 jumbo quail eggs from a hatchery and only 21 hatched, and then three died shortly after hatching because of having deformed feet. In the first stage of hatching everything was going fine, I had raised the humidity to about 65% on day 14 and it was steady there on day 17 and 18, that was when all the chicks hatched. A number of chicks hatched healthily and then boom disaster struck, the humidity dropped to about 58-63% and I couldn’t get it to go up again no matter how much water I put in and for some reason all the eggs stopped hatching and the only three that did hatch on late day 18 and day 19 had curved deformed feet, then they died. On day 19 no more eggs hatched after that and I was really bummed out, but on day 21 I went back in the incubator to see what had happened and I found a large number of very badly damaged chicks that had died during pipping. I don’t know how to upload pictures to this forum but basically the eggs are partly cracked open with a little bit of the dead chick’s body poking out, the membrane is still untorn. There is no unzipping going on just bit cracked up part on one side of the egg. There appears to be a lot of dried blood near the hole where the chick tried to break through, I think the chick’s beak may be sticking out the hole but it never made it any farther for some reason. Many of the chicks developed but never made it out of the shell.

 

[Nabiki]

I agree with @muddy75 . It sounds like your humidity was too high during incubation. The humidity you state during lockdown and hatch would have been fine.

In my experience, you only want about 30% humidity during incubation for coturnix quail.

 

[Crandox]

Did you use a salt-tested hygrometer? Your issues appear to be result of too high humidity….the ones that didn’t hatch basically drown and the deformed feet of those that did hatch. Incubators can be way off out of the box

No I don’t think I used a salt tested hygrometer, and I the calibration was pretty bad when the incubator arrived so I tried to calibrate it better but maybe made it worse even. Actually I just want to specify the 65% humidity was what I raised it to after day 14 in lockdown, before that the humidity was like 30-50%. Then again I’m just using the cheap hygrometer that came with this Chinese incubator. The hygrometer is at the very top of the incubator and I put the eggs on the lowest level right on top of the water. I was worried the humidity during lockdown was too low because it kept going to 55% so I started adding copious amounts of hot water to the incubator to get the humidity up, the hygrometer must have completely failed me because I would add like a whole pint of very HOT water and the humidity would only go up to like 65% for an hour or so. Yeah I think that killed them because before I started adding water like that the chicks were hatching normally. Stupid hygrometer! Also most of the eggs were developed normally when I candles them the issues started when the lockdown was underway.

 

[Crandox]

I agree with @muddy75 . It sounds like your humidity was too high during incubation. The humidity you state during lockdown and hatch would have been fine.

In my experience, you only want about 30% humidity during incubation for coturnix quail.

Oh yeah I see what you’re saying but actually what I meant is my humidity, as stated on the hygrometer, was about 65% on day 17 and 18 DURING lockdown. Before that I had the humidity running at 30-45%. When I candled the eggs on the day I put them in lockdown most of them looked healthy and developed, and on day 17 and 18 the hatch was proceeding normally, then late on day 18 disaster struck when I started adding hot water to the basin to increase the humidity. That was because the humidity dropped down to 55% and I got scared it was too low for lockdown. I added so much water that the incubator was literally leaking and spilling water all over my floor it was absolutely awful, and still none were hatching! But the most annoying part of it is even though I kept putting HOT water the humidity would actually go DOWN on my hygrometer and I’m starting to think this who failure could be the result of the faulty hygrometer on the cheap chinese incubator I’m using. When I first got it I tried calibrate it using a better hygrometer and it took me hours to get them lined up, but I just assumed everything was fine after that. Also the hygrometer and thermometer are on the top of the incubator and I put all the eggs on the very bottom of the incubator for lockdown, right above the hot water. So I wonder if they got cooked and steamed like hard boiled eggs! But I would have had no idea because the whole time the thermometer and hygrometer were reading normal numbers or numbers that were actually too low.

 

[Nabiki]

I think your incubator's readings are off. Never, never, never trust the readings on your incubator. Always put in calibrated thermometers and a salt tested hygrometer for the best readings.

One other thing, oddly enough, cold water evaporates faster than hot water. Also, if you're putting in hot water, you're changing the temperature inside the incubator, which is not good.

In my experience, the issues that you're reporting come from too high humidity during incubation.

 

[007Sean]

I agree with both @Nabiki and @muddy75

 

[Kiki]

I agree too.
Your Chinese incubator reading was way off.
You're humidity was way higher than what you think it was The entire time.


I hatched some last week...that was a 93% hatch rate.

I keep my humidity close to 30% throughout and then I do not raise it until I see an external pip. I never raise it higher than 50.