I am at a total loss, please help

[bswy75]

I am trying to hatch Bobwhite Quail. I have a Little Giant Circulated Air Incubator with a regular thermometer as well as an Acurite digital thermometer and hygrometer. I have about 40 eggs in my incubator and several of them should have already hatched 4 days ago. I am new at this and have read every page and studied as I went along. The only thing I can think is that I have maintained the humidity too high. It has been around 65-70 the first 20 days. I have maintained the temperature at 99.5.  At this time I have no other way to store the eggs, so unfortunatley I have been putting them in as I went along. I am desperate to make this work so I am looking into purchasing a small dorm refrigerator to store the eggs til I can fill the incubator, but not longer than 10-14 days.
  I need suggestions as to what I am doing wrong.

[slider]

Have you candled any of them to see if they are fertile???The humidity is high and the ones that were supposed to hatch may have drown when they broke through the air sac...Why did you have the humidity so high??? You can hold eggs about 7 to 10 days with out the temp. being 55%. I do not know how many egg that you are getting a day , but you can save at least 7 or 8 days worth then put them in the incubator and if you are going to do them that way then you need to invest in a separate hatcher or the way that you are doing it will never work. Break one of the ones open that is 4 days past hatch day and see what is going on..That is the only real way you will ever be able to tell what is going wrong...

[bswy75]

Yes I candled them and only kept the eggs that appeared to be fertile. The high humidity is purely my own fault. I have been trying to do everything right and just overlooked that. I cracked open one and it appeared as maybe the chick did drown. It looked fully developed for the most part but there was still some sort of egg sac attached to the chest area. I only have 6 hens so if I get a compact refrigerator and save them and put them all in at once if that will work. I am beside my self with disappointment in the fact that I may have caused death to all these chicks. So my question now is, should I empty out my incubator and start over after I have enough to somewhat fill it up or should I just let the rest of these run their course, or do you think the rest will just have the same grim result? Thanks for the quick response.

[slider]

How many do you have in there???Remember...you are more likely to hatch an egg with less humidity that to much..but as I stated in my previous post...you are going to have to get a separate hatcher if you are going to keep putting eggs into the incubator, because you are going to have to raise the humidity on them 3 to 4 days before they hatch and you cant do it in with other eggs that it is not time for them to hatch and you will contamate the other egg that are not due to hatch...You need to do a little more research on your overall hatching and brooding practices...keep trying and you will get it right..just remember when you hatch small multiple batches you will also have to brood small batches and that is a pain...More than likely the rest will be the same way, but if you have some in there that have only been in for a week or so just adjust your humidity and they should be fine...

[jbird]

bswy75
Slider,   gave you probably as good of advise as anyone could have. When I tried to hatch eggs for the first time I did the same thing you did and had the same bad luck you are having.  Learning is endless, just keep trying.     

[makesmiles]

I agree also with slider.  However, rather than putting eggs in as you get them, just save about 7 days worth to create a batch (no frig needed, just keep in the house with small end down) then incubate them before starting any more.  Forget the frig idea, just pickle, eat or discard the extra eggs until time to start over again.  You are definitely asking for a nightmare situation to brood so many separate batches at one time all at different temps.  Calm down, rethink your approach and start again.  You'll get it.

Good luck!

David

 

[CharlieHorse]

I always just collected them as mentioned.  Stored them in a small basement room for about 10 days, then put them all in incubator at once. No special treatment of storage humidity (house is air conditioned throughout) or temperature and always had good hatches with my own eggs, just turned them during storage.  Although, optimum storage would increase hatch rates............but that's not the problem you're having.

Good Luck!

[wildergamebirds]

  Although, optimum storage would increase hatch rates............but that's not the problem you're having.

  Ummm, Er, uh     looks to me like her hatch rate is zero.  That would be a problem, for me. 

  Nothing really wrong with the advice you've gotten so far, but you won't build much of a flock, this season.  You'll be setting 35-40 eggs, and eating 80-100.  Nothing wrong with that, but doesn't sound like that's what you want.
 
  You could just flip a coin.  There's no telling what might happen with the remaining eggs.  Those that have been in less than 14 days may have a 50-50 chance.  Any with less than a week at high humidity, probably better.

  Personally, I would probably lower the humidity to 50% for 5 days, then 55% for 5, and then up to 60%.  This may not help.  I would not add more eggs.  Eat the extras, or keep them cool, for the next batch.  If you can keep them between 50F-60F (55F is about optimum), and turn (tilt) them often, you can keep them longer.  Chicken egg cartons are good to store them, it allows you room to tilt them back and forth.  Hatch rate for the older eggs would be lower, of course. 

  If you start storing eggs, tomorrow, and get an average of 5 eggs per day, you will have 105 eggs in three weeks.  Yes, 35 will be over 14 days old, but that is not a magic drop dead age.  If only 40% hatch, that is an additional 14 chicks.  If you get an 80% average for the freshest 70 eggs, that's 56 or a total of 70 chicks.  These are not 100% accurate numbers, of course, but will give you an idea what to expect.  14 extra chicks, or one big omelet.  If you can't keep the temperature in the cooler above 50F, don't bother.
 
  Or get another incubator, and/or more layers.

  One other thought.  Having 3-4 chicks hatching every day is fun the first three days.  After seven it is misery!

[CharlieHorse]

Ok smarty pants..............................."storage"  problem.   

Having 3-4 chicks hatching every day is fun the first three days.  After seven it is misery!

Exactly!

[Pretty_Bird]

Late hatching Quail. I had two incubators full of Bobwhite's and the weather here has caused me problems. I say this because the humidity has been so high with all the rain we have been getting it seems to be causing the incubator to have a higher humidity level than normally does. Also so many storms (2 to 3 days out of the week) it has stormed and rained the entire time my eggs were in the incubator. Power outages temp dropping just a few degrees  but sometimes two or three times in a day.
What a pain in the tuss that is..
But both incubators had 120 eggs each and they didn't start hatching on the day that they were suppose to. Late that night only 1 egg hatched and nothing the next day until the storm blew in and then they went to popping out had about 30 in each one and then nothing for another 14 hours and then another 15 to 20 in each one and several hours 8 to 10 went buy and there would be 10 to 15 more hatched. This went on the entire time it took for them to hatch out.
I did noticethat there were several that tried to break the shell way down in the middle of the egg and that was odd to me, because normally they just cut the large end out of the egg not the middle at all But this time they were breaking a hole in the middle of the egg and not going on and working around it as a result those died in the shell. About 35 of them did that.  Also they took forever to dry, several hours longer than my other hatches.
Final results were out of 240 eggs 195 live happy babies 35 died in shell and 10 did not attempt to hatch.
 The end results were great and I know I do not have any reason to complain. It just was a  very odd hatching process compared to any other I've had.

[bswy75]

Thank you all for your feedback. I am so glad this forum is here for all of us to learn from. From the beginning I read everything on here to try and be successful, but when I came across problems, I knew exactly where I could go to get feedback on how to resolve my problems. I just ordered another circulated-air incubator that I intend on using as my hatcher. I also borrowed my brother's compact refrigerator that at the highest setting keeps the temp. just over 50 degrees to store my eggs for 7-10 days til I place them in the incubator, but the jury is still out on whether or not to use this to store my eggs. The temp. and humidity is so high here in Missouri that it will be hard to store them at a reasonable temp. So I have learned the hard way, but have you guys to thank for pulling me through. When my first eggs hatch I will celebrate and think of all of you.

[Pheasant Hollow Farm]

You may get the temp in the compact refrigerator close, but you will dry out the eggs due to the fact that the refrigerator will not compensated for the humidity loss.

Steve
Pheasant Hollow Farm

[rushcreek]

I use one of those small fridges and it works well. Place a large flat pan of water on the bottom and cups of water in the door. I keep mine on the porch so the temps will vary from 45 to 55. Not good I know, but it's never seemed to hurt the hatchability. Even eggs stored for 14 days hatch well.
Joanna

[slider]

I think that Steve is right...using one of those little reffers is not a good idea...just keep them in any air condition room in your house except the ketchen and even the ketchen is ok as long as you do not smoke it up or do alot of fried foods....I do not think that you could put enough water in that thing to compensate for the humidity loss.

[makesmiles]

I have to agree with Slider and Steve.  I have kept eggs for up to 14 days with no fridge and hatch rate was great.  I kept them inside the house (heated and cooled) and tilted the egg trays 2 to 3 times a day.  I think the fridge would dry them out too much or maybe drown them if you add too much water.

David