I'm thinking you did pretty much everything right. Six of six hatching is outstanding, especially if this is one of your first tries.
For the remaining ones, make sure they have adequate heat. They get cold pretty quickly for the first few days, so keeping the temperature in the high 90s is...
Lots of people raise them in their backyards here. They just don't advertise or sell them. At the start of Covid, I think I paid $10 each for hatching eggs and had them shipped interisland. I waited a long time in the queue to be sent any, and paid the postage too. It was probably because I...
Depends if your roo is an equal-opportunity mounter. Sometimes you get a roo with the hots for just one hen and no matter what you do, your ratio is just 1:1. Sometimes you get one that makes his rounds several times a day and wonders where the rest of the hens are.
I have one roo well past...
I had a guy buy chicks from me because his hatch rates weren't great. He had a really fancy setup and expensive incubator. When he saw my 50+ year Styrofoam box of an incubator I bought second-hand, he just couldn't believe it. FWIW, it has a fan, circulates air and keeps the temperature...
Totally right. Birds have been doing this for millennia and all they really need to do is be warm enough. Just make sure your incubator keeps a steady temperature: doesn't spike or drop. A separate inside thermometer/hygrometer is key and I like the Govee products for price and quality. You...
I don't know what the right answer is, but I spray mine with either hydrogen peroxide or diluted Listerine before incubation.
I "think" I get better results, but there's no really good way to measure if that's true or not unless I test and compare vast numbers of batches both ways.
I sometimes wonder though, whether the hard hatches are genetic defects or just darn bad luck. If I can hear them calling for help from inside the shell, seems to me they're fighters.
I had a similar situation recently. I assisted and it took the chick about 3 days to get over the kinked neck, then I couldn't pick it out from the others. The hatch was already presold, so if it was deformed I would have culled it because it wouldn't be fair to charge the buyer.
I had a hen...
Probably should have also mentioned that I garden extensively and I collect the poop for compost. If you can't use it, chances are you know someone who can.
For me, the opposite. I no longer breed Texas A&M or whites. Just a matter of preference because I've found that if they grow up in a mixed batch, they tend to accept one another. If they grow up with an imbalance of either color, the majority color will gang up on the minority. It's just...
Ten ounces for a jumbo seems small. I usually tell people my quail are at or near jumbo-sized, and they're about 12-14 oz. Since most of my birds are bigger, it almost seems weird to think there are 5 ounce standard-size birds still around.
I just completed hatching for someone else. I probably should have taken a deposit, but the buyer has been following up regularly so I don't think I'll get ghosted.
In this case, the eggs were mine, the incubator was mine, the time was mine. He'll take possession of the hatched chicks.
I've...
Celadon & regular Coturnix quail hatching eggs: $3 each
Chicks, 1week old: $10 each
Shipping eggs between islands, buyer pays postage. No additional charges for handling. Minimum $30.
There has been a huge interest in the birds so I'm posting here in case anyone is looking for quail. Quail...
Winter to Spring transition is always hit or miss for me too (although here in Hawaii, *winter* means something entirely different than in Oregon).
I just did a hatch for a buyer, 23 of 39 and they're looking healthy. I'm weirdly more nonchalant about incubator heat now that I saw how badly...