Preparing for Lockdown

[Grind Hard Farm]

If you have not seen my forum on my journey of incubating eggs for the first time, I am incubating quail and our flock's eggs. It is day 11, temperature is at 99.5, humidity 55. I'm not sure what breed of quail we have but I know two different breeds need to be in lockdown on day 15 or day 13. My concern is that the quail will need to be in lockdown soon, but how is that going to work for the chicks? Could anyone give me any tips to have a successful hatch for both of them?

 

[Silkiebegins]

Just manually turn the chick eggs. Could you send a picture of your incubator.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don't do quail so I cannot comment on what is the right day for lockdown. Next time start the chicken eggs early so hatch day for all the eggs are the same.

I really hate these staggered hatches. Different things can go wrong. The chicken eggs really don't need turning after day 14 or so, so I'd stop turning them when you go into lockdown with the quail eggs. I'd up the humidity when the quail eggs need it. I consider the humidity during hatch to be more important than keeping a certain humidity on the chicken eggs at that stage. What all that humidity control during incubation is about is how much moisture is lost during incubation. There is a pretty wide window that works. During hatch the risk is shrink-wrapping the chicks so they cannot hatch. I think your risk with the chicken eggs is less than the risk with the quail eggs so up the humidity.

Another problem is that the first to hatch will crawl around and possibly slime the other eggs. This can lead to bacteria getting into those eggs and killing the chicken chicks. So I suggest getting some of those mesh baskets berries often come in or maybe making a basket out of hardwire cloth and putting that over the quail eggs so they cannot crawl to the chicken eggs. I don't know if you can do that with your incubator or not.

Good luck!

 

[Grind Hard Farm]

Just manually turn the chick eggs. Could you send a picture of your incubator.

 

[Silkiebegins]

I would just manually turn the chicken eggs and try your best to keep things clean with they're hatching. How old are the chicken eggs? If they're not in lock down it shouldn't be a problem if the baby quals somehow roll the eggs.

 

[Grind Hard Farm]

I would just manually turn the chicken eggs and try your best to keep things clean with they're hatching. How old are the chicken eggs? If they're not in lock down it shouldn't be a problem if the baby quals somehow roll the eggs.

The chicken eggs are 11 days old

 

[Silkiebegins]

Shouldn't be a problem if you can keep up with turning the eggs.