➡ Quail Hatch Along🥚

[scyllarus]

So - we have a couple still baking, but we managed about a 50% hatch! I'm very pleased with this given they were shipped eggs.

I don't know what their problem is, but they start distress-chirping whenever we turn the lights off. It goes on for minutes before we give up and turn the lights back on. I spent so much time checking to see what was wrong before we figured out they just freak out when the light is off.

 

[Kiki]

 

[Nabiki]

So - we have a couple still baking, but we managed about a 50% hatch! I'm very pleased with this given they were shipped eggs.

I don't know what their problem is, but they start distress-chirping whenever we turn the lights off. It goes on for minutes before we give up and turn the lights back on. I spent so much time checking to see what was wrong before we figured out they just freak out when the light is off.

If you can, dim the lights gradually. If you don't have multiple light sources where you're keeping them turn off one by one, you can try turning off the lights where they are but have a light on in the next room so they have dim light, then turn that light of after half an hour or so. That gives them time to realize that it's time to bed down and go to sleep.

 

[Nabiki]

The one egg that turned out to be fertile of the 41 that I set is quite late hatching. It should have hatched on Sunday. Yesterday there was an internal pip, though, and this morning there's an external pip.

I need to go find an older hen to bring inside and see how she does with the chick when it hatches.

 

[CliftonQuail]

So - we have a couple still baking, but we managed about a 50% hatch! I'm very pleased with this given they were shipped eggs.

I don't know what their problem is, but they start distress-chirping whenever we turn the lights off. It goes on for minutes before we give up and turn the lights back on. I spent so much time checking to see what was wrong before we figured out they just freak out when the light is off.

I have a smart LED that I've set to gradually go from off to 100% bright over the course of 15 minutes in the AM, then it's on all day and gradually goes from 100% to off in the evening. The birds get a simulated sunrise and sunset. That seems to reduce the amount of distress chirping from when I just had lights turn on and off without the ramping.

 

[scyllarus]

TY for your advice! I'll look into light options - I tried to manually dim the light we have (it has a dimmer function) and that...sort of worked. Still a lot of distress chirping, to be honest, but admittedly it's not as smooth as a programmed light.

 

[Nabiki]

My single egg has started to zip. I just put my camera into the incubator on 5:1 timelapse to see if I can get a decent video of the chick hatching.

 

[Nabiki]

*sigh*... False alarm. Not quite zipping yet. Just widening it's pip a bit.

 

[scyllarus]

Uh...so. End result of TOF eggs was 32 live chicks out of 60 eggs. I managed to drown one (a tiny shallow bit of water in a jar lid - I should have known better), there was one that pipped and gave up (not counting it towards the successful hatches), and one that has some bizarre deformities. We had a couple with splay legs and a couple with curled toes, all of which have been successfully splinted, but this chick takes the cake. I'll try to get pictures if it survives the night, I'm on night shift at work and just didn't have time to take a pic before work.

In short, we have a chick that didn't develop any eyes. It has a weird cross-beak deformity as well, but the lack of eyes (and I suspect ears - I didn't see any obvious ear holes) makes it look like a weird duck, or maybe the uhh...the zombie lady's dad in Nightmare Before Christmas. Husband wants to try to raise it as a pet since it seems healthy despite the deformities. I don't think it will survive, but I'll keep updating, I guess.

 

[Nabiki]

Uh...so. End result of TOF eggs was 32 live chicks out of 60 eggs. I managed to drown one (a tiny shallow bit of water in a jar lid - I should have known better), there was one that pipped and gave up (not counting it towards the successful hatches), and one that has some bizarre deformities. We had a couple with splay legs and a couple with curled toes, all of which have been successfully splinted, but this chick takes the cake. I'll try to get pictures if it survives the night, I'm on night shift at work and just didn't have time to take a pic before work.

In short, we have a chick that didn't develop any eyes. It has a weird cross-beak deformity as well, but the lack of eyes (and I suspect ears - I didn't see any obvious ear holes) makes it look like a weird duck, or maybe the uhh...the zombie lady's dad in Nightmare Before Christmas. Husband wants to try to raise it as a pet since it seems healthy despite the deformities. I don't think it will survive, but I'll keep updating, I guess.

Good luck. I doubt very much that it will survive as well. The cross beak will make it very hard for it to eat even if it does have it's entire brain.