Easter Hatch Log

[pocketsierra]

Wednesday, March 9th 7:20 am.

124 Coturnix quail eggs started. Brower Incubator is full to capacity.

34 eggs are from an Ebay "Variety" pack and are for neighbors. These eggs are of many different sizes and fill up two sections.

90 eggs are of Texas Gourmet Quail, (A&M type strain from quailking in this forum), and fill up the remaining six pie sections. They are uniformly large. Exactly 15 fit in a section - no more and no less.

All eggs were sanitized last night after spending a few days in cool storage in the garage.  

Temperature had recovered up to the 90s when I left for work. It took long enough to pack the incubator that it had pretty much cooled to room temperature before then.

Further updates as events warrant.

[pocketsierra]

Sunday March 13th 9:15 am.

One egg removed with dried yolk on the ouside and a crack on the bottom.

On Friday, I responded to a ball bearing emergency on the Brower incubator and restored the smooth operation of the turner.

Nathan

[pocketsierra]

Candled 122 eggs last night.

Was able to see dramatically better than on my last hatch. There were some eggs too dark to tell anything, but this is a small minority. The equipment or nature of the eggs hasn't changed. The difference is probably in my experience and confidence.

I discarded 17 as infertile and six as early term failures. I marked happy faces on the ones making progress. On some, I was seeing movement and well defined healthy blood vessels. But I counted it as good if I saw some good clouds of red, some gray specs, and/or a few blood vessels. After all, I had 122 to go through. The "yolkers" were pretty obvious.

99 eggs left in the incubator.

[pocketsierra]

The eggs are mostly Texas Gourmet White, plus a mixture of Golden Manchurian, Tuxedo, and Jumbo Brown.

Will I be able to tell them apart at birth? Neighbors are taking home some of the batch and might want to know what color they will grow up to be.  

I looked around the internet for pictures of baby quail. From a few pictures I've found, the white are yellow at birth. The tuxedo is black on top and yellow above. I've seen the Jumbo Brown at birth before; it is dark with bits of yellow. The manchurian picture I found showed a yellow chick with a bit of orange tint. I'm not sure I will be able to tell that from white.  

Of course, I might color a few by injecting dye into the egg. I'll have to warn the neighbors that the purple, blue and green ones will grow up to be white.  

[pocketsierra]

I colored 15 unhatched chicks red, green, and blue according to these instructions:

http://chickscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/resources/egg_to_chick/coloring.html

Nathan

[quailking]

I was just thinkin about how you are doing with the eggs we sent ya.. I hope all is going well and that they hatch good for ya.. I had never heard of dyein' them in the shell, but we hatch about 15,000 a week here, how would you like to dye that many..LOL.. That would REALLY cause confusen with the hatchery, I can hear them now, the hatch was good but they are all green..LOL
  Keep in touch and let me know how they do.. Jim

[pocketsierra]

I converted the incubator to a hatcher by disengaging the turner and soaking some wet sponges in there. This morning, humidity is at 70%. I have a nice stack of sponges where I can add water through a vent hole without opening a vent.  

Quailking, I understand these will be yellow at birth. Of course, some of them won't be yellow anymore.  :lol:  I don't think I would try to dye 15,000 eggs; 15 eggs was stressful enough. I might not have done it if it wasn't Easter and my wife wasn't so interested in it and it didn't build so much interest among friends and neighbors.

I'm optimistic for the hatch, based on what I've seen so far. They should hatch throughout the day Saturday and a few into Sunday. I've invited the friends and neighbors over Saturday at 4.

Nathan

[pocketsierra]

A few eggs (3-4) are showing subtle signs of pipping as of 4pm PST. Some will probably hatch overnight.

I better get some food and water ready.

[pocketsierra]

6 have hatched tonight while we've been out to the theather.

2 pink, 2 green, and 2 blond.

Nathan

[pocketsierra]

About 20 have hatched so far, including 5 pink ones, 4 green ones, and a blue one.

12 were placed in my homemade deluxe brooder.

[pocketsierra]

6pm

They've been hatching all day. 1 blue, 5 red, and 4 green have hatched so far, plus some yellow for a total of 34.  

The neighbor ordered the brown/tuxedo ones and only one of them have hatched so far. But there is now more activity in that sector.

Nathan

[pocketsierra]

I believe over 50 have hatched so far.  One is spraddled and a few seem stuck on their side. Many eggs are still slow to hatch.

Here are some pictures of the chicks.

[Hardhead]

Hey those are really cool pics of the chics. 8)  Now after seeing the color treatment I may give it a go. That is really a nice hatch. Ya did a good job MOM :lol:
Garry

[pocketsierra]

I estimate that at least 62 have hatched. I'll be washing the incubator tonight.

15 have gone away with neighbors, and four to some local Boy Scouts. 10 or more have died due to initial weakness or spraddle leg issues. That leaves maybe 33 we have left.

One started hatching as late as Wednesday night but died in shell. There are others that have pipped and someone

On the whole, I'm not too happy with my hatching skills as yet. I still ended up with a bunch of birds, but there were issues at hatch time. Many eggs died nearly full term and occassionally pipped. I haven't been successful in any case at correcting spraddle leg; more prevention may be in order. The hatch dragged on for five days.    

I'll be taking a look at conditions at conditions at hatch time - humidity and temperature and so forth. I'm also wondering about the floor conditions that might be causing spraddle leg. There is a wire floor in the incubator, but it is a plastic coated wire. I've used indented kraft paper in the brooder, but I'm no longer sure it is rough enough. Plus the bird pile ups around the heat lamp may be causing injuries. I've switched to a ceramic space heater to warm a wider area for a better distributed and more peaceful pile.
 
I've considered building my own hatcher to substitute for the incubator at hatch time.

Nathan

[drwink]

Don't feel to bad, my last hatch took 4 days before I called it quits.
50% hatch rate.
Waiting on 2 more hovabtors that are loaded with 120 eggs each. Did my first candling last night on batch #1 & removed 27 infertile eggs.
Will do the other tonite.

Wally