Batch of quail eggs incubation started

[pocketsierra]

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

[IamTomm]

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.

[pocketsierra]

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.

[IamTomm]

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

[Hardhead]

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

[pocketsierra]

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.

[Fivehollers]

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  

[Hardhead]

Did it hatch? Anything different about it?  ....Just courious :roll:

[IamTomm]

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.