That Quail Place Forum
Raising Gamebirds => Incubation => Topic started by: pocketsierra on February 04, 2005, 05:11:18 PM
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I have a batch of 65 Jumbo Brown Coturnix eggs from mail order in the incubator.
The Coturnix hens are quite artistic and the eggs are all different patterns and sizes. One egg is a mystery egg because it is all white. It is possible that it was layed by a Coturnix hen, but it just might be a Bobwhite egg that got in one of my orders by mistake.
I have a Brower TopHatch Incubator. It seems to be holding temperature at 99.5 and humidity was at 56% this morning. The autoturner is neat to watch. I have eggs in four of the eight sections. Every once in a while the eggs will shift slightly. This morning, one egg had jumped a fence, so I reshuffled some of the eggs.
Further updates as events warrant.
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The coturnix eggs will be almost all spotted but its not uncommon to see a white one or even a blueish one.. I call them ghost eggs..
Try to keep the humity up around 58-60% if possible, especially days 16-18 while hatching, it will keep the chicks from stickin in the egg
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Update.
Since then, the humidity has been 59-60%. I've added water a few times. I have practiced raising the humidity for those last three days and I will need to add some rags or sponges for that. The Brower turns eggs on their side on a rack and the turner can be disengaged to make it a hatcher.
The temperature is holding very well. I have to get used to the fact that my digital thermometer will show 98.2 while the mercury one will show 99.5. I found in my trials that the digital thermometer was reading low while the other was close to the temperature of the egg.
The economy candler arrived from Cutter Supply yesterday. I tried it out on a few eggs. The white egg was easiest to candle and showed healthy veins.
Some eggs are brown enough that I am not sure I will be able to tell much in them. In a medium tan egg, I saw veins and movement. This gave me hope that at least some of them are very much alive.
It was only day 5. I plan to do exhaustive candling on Day 8(Friday). Does anyone have pictures from candling quail eggs? I've seen some from chicken eggs.
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Remember that while you are candeling they are not in the incubator staying warm.. some of the darker eggs are almost impossible to candle.. I would wait till about day 10-12 and candle and remove any without growth and try not to remove them from the incubator any more than you have too, they want to be at a constant temp, just lifting the lid will throw that all off..
Good luck
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Sounds like good advice re: waiting to candle. I'll be waiting probably till day 12 or maybe even 14. I'll stagger it so I don't open the incubator too many times in one day.
I couldn't see much of anything on Day 8 on a sample. The only one that looked like it was making progress was the ghost egg. I counted another 14 eggs that I could draw no conclusions on. Some say that a maglite or an economy candler can work on Coutrnix eggs, but I found neither to work very well.
Space in my incubator is not at a premium this time. Only half of the sections are full. But I don't want the yolkers going bad and spreading any bacteria to the others. If I can't figure out more effective candling, then I will just be going by smells.
It doesn't look so far that I will have a very good hatch this time. This is mail order so I didn't expect more than 50%, but even that seems high now. I will want to learn some lessons for next month.
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It's now day 14 of the hatch.
Tonight I will be disengaging the turner and adding sponges to raise the humidity up to 75% or so. Then I will be leaving the lid on faithfully for the next three days.
In spot candling yesterday, some still seemed unreadable because of dark shells, however a few seemed dark and full with a little bit of movement inside. The one ghost egg is still the best one to tell anything on.
The rubbermaid brooder is ready to go for Monday morning.
My hopeful estimate for the hatch is 16 out of 65, based on largely inconclusive candling results and my non statistically accurate knowledge of statistics.
Nathan
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Coturnix Quail are very prolific layers as goes the same with hatching. This is one reason why many people raise them. It's always interesting to hear results from others such as yourself. We all learn from each others mistakes. Out of 65 eggs during a good laying season you should have nearly 95% fertile if not more. This time of year and with shipping may deter your hatch as you expect but I wouldnt be surprised to have 40 or better hatch out of the 65. Candling takes alot of practice but can easily be done with all types of eggs. I wouldnt even recommend it at all if you have the room in the incubator unless you want the experience in doing it. Also depending on your area your humidity may already be adequate enough for your hatch. Its been unusually wet here this year so we add very little water if any except for the last 3 days. This past setting of 1,000 eggs we used no water at all. Also every 1/2 degree increase during incubation will usually raise your hatch times by 12 hours. Good luck on your hatch and let us know how it turns out for you. You can also candle your eggs by temperature if the conditions are right using a laser temperature gun :wink: But thats another story.....
Larry
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It's night of Day 16. No pipping or cheeping here yet. If there is none cheeping or pipping by tommorrow night, I'll expect that the hatch will be a bit late.
Humidity is at 73% +-5%. Doesn't seem to get higher than that.
Larry, I'm interested in your method for candling eggs by temperature.
Nathan
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After seeing no previous activity, I found one bird completely hatched at 11 am this morning.
I've had various church meetings throughout the day and seem to find more every time I return.
There are 9 out and about as of tonight. There are pips on a few other eggs. The pips are small enough that I don't think I notice them all.
I expect there to be more by the morning. I'm keeping the lid on faithfully. I will open it once tonight to take out the dry ones and do anything else necessary.
The birds are curious and exploring the place. When I added water through a drain hole, two were interested in it - not for drinking, but for a quick shower. I see why they reccomend non drowning waterers.
Nathan
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:) sounds like you're getting a good hatch. i have a comment to make about the waterers. a really convienent way to make a standard waterer (with the base that screws onto the dish) safe for the chicks is to just plop a couple of glass marbles in the water. the chicks cant drown but they can still drink, they have fun pecking the marbles (at no risk to them because the marbles are too big to eat), and most importantly it makes it look pretty :lol: good luck with your quail!
-quailer370
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GO ON P.S. I LOVE A GOOD HATCH :D P.D.
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I count 23 hatched so far with more possible. Other eggs have cracks and pips.
Most are now in the brooder box (under the bed rubbermaid type container). I was worried about the temperature because they seem to want to cluster under the heat lamp. It is a 150 watt ceramic heat bulb. However, after a while, some will venture out and explore.
They haven't tried the water. I've seen some peck at food. I hope they will get more interested in the water soon. I actually splurged on got the non drowning base and have pedialyte in it.
Some will come to me if I wiggle a finger at them.
One looks like it might be spraddle legged. The rest look healthy.
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HEY NATHAN, LET ME KNOW HOW THAT CERAMIC BULB WORKS I SAW THEM THE OTHER NITE ON LINE. DO YOU HAVE IT HOOKED UP TO A REASTAT "I DON'T THINK I SPELLED THAT RIGHT" THEY SAY THATS THE WAY TO GO SO YOU CAN CONTROL THE TEMP. OR CAN YOU HOOK IT UP TO A THERMOSTAT? GOOD LUCK ON THAT HATCH.I LOVE A GOOD HATCH :D P.D.
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There are now 26 that have hatched. Things have gone well.
There are pips on many other eggs, at least 10. A few have even been cut around, but none are doing anything right now. I'll be giving those eggs more time, but I wonder if any are giving up or dying and if I did something wrong to cause that.
Humidity has been as high as 78%. I believe it has been high enough throughout the hatching.
My ceramic light has no thermostat, but it seems to need to be on all the time to be barely hot enough. I'm judging this by the temperature of 95deg. There is no thermometer in there now that the chicks are there, but sometimes they seem to spend too much time under the heat lamp.
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One more hatched overnight, so now there are 27.
One of the eggs that has pipped and is cut nearly all the way around cheeps at me, a good sign. Other pipped eggs are probably dead in the shell, but some may yet hatch.
The temperature spiked yesterday afternoon when the incubator got direct sunlight. It was downstairs, and in a rare occurrence, there was a sunny day in the Pacific Northwest. I quickly closed the blinds after the digital thermometer read 102.5. I'm pretty sure that was a factor that stopped the progress of many pipped eggs. If that is the case, it is preventable in the future.
Several birds have found the food and water. A whole bunch of the birds will come to me if I put my hand in the other end of the brooder box.
Three year old Sierra loves to hold a bird and does well at it.
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2 more hatched today during the day, for a total of 29.
When I add a new one to the bunch, a day old quail seems twice as big.
They are exploring and finding the food a lot more now.
Nathan
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Sierra,
I am looking to get a new incubator before this season starts and you said your using a Brower TopHatch Incubator, How do you like the incubaor? Where did you get it from? Is it worth what you pair for it? I had a gqf cabinet sized hatcher and it was way to big for my purposes and I have a styrophome one now from gqf. Its probably over 20 years old but it works good but its getting old and I would rather use it for hatching at this point. I also had 2 of them little giant still air incubator and I must say thier junk. Both of them had the electroinic thrmostat burn out in them. ANd once that happened the temp would just keep rising. So that messed up a lot of my hatches last year. So I am finally going to get a good incubator this yar one way or another. I was looking at a brinsea 20. But I wanna hear what you got to say about the Brower TopHatch Incubator first. Cause thier a big difference in price.
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Yes, the Brower is worth what I paid for it. I paid about $120 with shipping from cuttersupply.com.
I say it is worth it because I'd probably pay about the same price for an LG or GQF with a quail egg auto turner and picture window. I can accomplish the same things with it. Now, at the end of the hatch, the incubator is a mess. I can toss it all in the dishwasher tonight. So I'm happy I don't have a styrofoam one right now. And I don't need to mess with egg cups of different sizes.
From feedback I've seen in the Backyard Chicken forum, people were happier with Hovabators then LG incubators. Some of those experienced people have been converted to a Brower happily.
Is it loud? Yes, but it mellows out in sound after the first few days. If it is in a room with the door closed, you barely hear it oustide the room
I would reccommend using a surge protector (in this and all incubators) and I made a blankey like the accessory they sell from some reflectix insulation and duct tape (not strictly necesssary. I didn't have to do much at hatch time. I just disengaged the turner and added sponges for humidity.
I doubt it has the same quality as an Octagon 20, close to $400 with a turner. But it met my needs for the temperature. I'd guess the advantage of the Octagon 20 is the super precise temperature control. But the Brower temperature control is adequate once set with a thermometer you trust.
Of the eggs that didn't make it I'd say half were infertile, and the other half died in shell because a temperature surge in direct sunlight on the day of hatch (my fault). I believe the Brower held temperature well enough that I didn't have any losses due to it.
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Nathan
Thanks for all that information. I am still not sure which to choose so I guess I will research a bit more. But again thanks.
Tom
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Sounds like things are going well Nathan..How about the ghost egg did it hatch? Your post make it seem as if I ma doing the work. keep the reports coming. Very exciting to read how they come along.
Garry/Hardhead
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Ghost egg pipped but died in shell. It was a coturnix; they can lay white eggs occasionally. I'm afraid I killed a few off when I didn't notice the sunlight on hatch day. Who would have expected sunlight in winter in the Pacific Northwest?
I'm glad I had that white egg; it was the easiest one to candle.
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RedOakGambirds
Glad to hear someone else who does not use much water. We have a very old red cedar cabinet type incubator - a Leahy to be exact - they are not made anymore. The insulation in the thing is so dense that just a little water every other or every three days is all it takes. Took us forever to figure out that we were drowning the birds reguardless of what the hydrometer said. (We have a digital one from Radio Shack, tells humidity, temp etc) does not vary to much from the old fashioned thermometer and only differes from top to bottom by a degree. This incubator has 4 very large shelves and we manually turn the eggs although it does have attachements for automatic turners, it is so old we can not find many replacement parts for it. It cost 30 bucks to get an owners manual for it there is only one in the US so the guy made us a photocopy (for 30 dollars) :shock: but we had to have it.
We now only candle before putting eggs in the incubator and as we are putting them in the hatcher. We use two hova bators, for hatching so we don't have to disturb the incubating eggs.
Our hatches are almost 100 percent since we quit worring about the numbers and started paying attention to the air sac in the egg. In fact we got so good at hatching the darn things out we ran out of cages to keep them in, so were forced to quit. This year hubby is building 3 new cages and we have a brood box that will hold 3000 chicks (seperate compartments) the grow off pens are going to double this year. Busy Busy
Lori :D
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Did it hatch? Anything different about it? ....Just courious :roll:
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When I used to hatch courtnix I would get one of them almost light colored eggs with no blotches on it from the courtnix. Its stuck out from the rest. I probably hatched a dozen of them over a years time, all they are is a miscolored egg. The bird that hatches from them eggs are no different in color or size or anything like that. Out of the ones I hatch out of the light eggs, I had one white courtnix hen that actually laid eggs without the blotches on them every time. They weren't exatcly white but they weren't tan, And they had no bltoching on them like regular courtnix eggs. I know it was the same hen cause I had them all seperated at one time and she was the only hen in the pen. I got them light colored eggs from normals, Tuxedo, chocolate and tuxedos to start of with. I eventually got rid of all of the courtnix cause the mulitplied like rats and I had more than I ever wanted.