Can my quail breath in the homemade incubator?

[Puddingtheamericana]

we’ve got a homemade incubator which has successfully worked in the past. i read somewhere that you leave the quails in the incubator for the first 24 hours (idk if this is true or not, if someone could clarify that’d be nice), but the first time we hatched a quail i didn’t know if she could breath or not in the incubator. it’s a plastic bin with a bulb and water dish for humidity.
i had made a hole in the top of the incubator, a small one so she could breath bc i online i only found stuff for commercial incubators.

the second time we incubated the hole was still there and no one hatched (someone poked a hole and there were 10 fully developed chicks that didn’t hatch), we suspect that the humidity never stayed stable bc of the hole.

so now we’re on our third time and i coverd and sealed the hole and the humidity and temp have been fine. we’re on day 23 which is around when most have pipped/hatched, usally they hatch in 23/24th day. the hole is completely sealed this time and i don’t know if i should uncover it now for any quails to breath.
does this incubator seem like it’ll suffocate a quail?
do i make a hole thus risking no other quails will hatch once one has already hatched?
and do i leave any possible chicks in said incubator for the next 24h, or transfer it to a brooder right away?

 

[Ruby Rogue]

There is no ventilation at all in that bin, so yes, that's what is causing your hatches to fail.

 

[Ruby Rogue]

Quail are supposed to hatch on day 17-19 if you're hatching coturnix. I wouldn't use that bin to hatch again unless you do some serious remodeling of the entire setup.

Does it have a fan? How do you regulate temperature? How do you monitor the temperature and humidity? Do they eggs get turned at least 3 times per day?

There are many factors to consider, but I do believe they are dying because they can't breathe after hatch.

 

[Puddingtheamericana]

Quail are supposed to hatch on day 17-19 if you're hatching coturnix. I wouldn't use that bin to hatch again unless you do some serious remodeling of the entire setup.

Does it have a fan? How do you regulate temperature? How do you monitor the temperature and humidity? Do they eggs get turned at least 3 times per day?

There are many factors to consider, but I do believe they are dying because they can't breathe after hatch.

they get turned 4 times a day. we’ve had success once’s before but not since. our quails have always hatched on day 23 or 24, we do use store bought eggs and eggs that have been chilled take longer apparently.
we have a temperature gauge, so whenever i go to turn eggs i can add or take away water for humidity, and if the “incubator“ is too cold i cover it with towels. i also have an app that is connected to the temperature gauge

the batch of eggs i was talking about in this post (our third time) has hit day 25 which is the usually incubation time limit for us. the humidity and temp were very steady although the humidity was rather low on day 23 when i heard pipping, i was only able to get the humidity high enough by day 24 but that was too late i think.

even after i stopped turning the eggs i would continue to check the eggs in case someone hatched or was hatching. with our first quail, i woke up one morning to check the eggs before school and just saw a little chick stumbling around. so i created a hole in the lid and kept her in there for 24h and she was fine.

a main reason i was allowed to get quails and incubate them was because creating my own incubator and hatching store bought eggs was sort of like a at home science class to learn from, and even though i wanted to use a legit incubator the 3rd time my mom said that’d ruin the experience.
although my mom has gotten quite attached to the quails and eggs and misses our quail that just passed away and wants another so we’ll be using a professional one from here on out.

 

[AfiafiAfi]

Don’t worry mine are taking more than 23 days because they’re not Japanese quails some quails hatchafter a long time like mine