Bobs Laying Eggs

[CharlieHorse]

I researched for about a year before raising quail, I ordered my first eggs from Lake Cumberland back in february, making this my first year raising Bobwhite quail, have had very good luck and great enjoyment in doing so (not so good at hatching...50-63%, just good luck at keeping them alive once they were born). I have had great success thus far with the survival of all that I have turned loose at 5 weeks of age onto a 400 acre farm that hasn't been farmed for 30 years. I have planted about 4 acres of various food plots throughout, I have disked and bushhogged various locations throughout the summer and I also bushhog various places, especially the field edges and some of the fields in strips at different intervals throughout also. I have shaken up a covey several times throughout the summer, some are a great distance from where they were released.  I have kept 8 (4male/4female) which are still in flight pen, I went away on vacation for a week and came home to find a nest built in the pen with 16 eggs in it!!!  These are the first eggs that I had ever gotten, so I wasn't expecting any eggs, I didn't think that they were old enough yet. I thought that maybe since I was gone and no one was around at all to disturb them, that they started laying and building a nest???  From what I understand from this forum, is that, they will not set on the eggs and hatch them in captivity.   Any opinions would be appreciated....Thanks! And Thanks for the wealth of info from everyone on this forum.

[blackswamp]

Congrats trailbossusa.  I would gather the eggs up and incubate yourself.  You definitely stand a better chance of hatching them out then your bobs.  Plus, the risk of losing the chicks would be less.  My guess would be the same as yours, nobody to bother them so they felt more comfortable, at least enough to nest/lay.
I have some almost the same age as yours, and my understanding was that they would be capable of eggs at 16 weeks (not saying that they read the book and understand that too  :) )   I have a couple older females that I have gotten a few eggs from this year, but am still waiting patiently for any eggs from my younger ones.
Question:  What kind of nesting materials did they use for the nest and what did it look like?  And, do you have them on wire or on the ground?

[Redhorse]

I have my breeders in a J-H with sand on the floor. I have gotten over 130 eggs this year from 5 hens. One weekend while I was on a fishing trip my wife neglected to collect the eggs like I had asked. When I came home I had 13 eggs in a shallow depression of sand in the corner of the Johnny House with one of the hens setting on them. I put that batch of eggs directly into the incubator since they were already started. I have to open the J-H door every time I collect eggs (inconvenient) but I don't have any breeder cages. Twice I have had a bird escape when collecting eggs, the first I caught with a net, the second I couldn't find so opened the recall door on the J-H and it was back the next morning!

[CharlieHorse]

Thanks, they are on the ground and they just used peices of dried grass and such that I throw in there from time to time. They built it underneath a big pile of grapevines that I had thrown in there for cover, it is just a plain ole round bird nest probably 6-7 inches across at the top. I was impressed, but than again, wild bird nest have always been amazing to me as to how they build them and how perfect some of them are.