First time hatching- cotirnix

[Evelit]

hello all. I feel silly as over the duration of my incubation, I’ve been looking up other peoples’ experiences to verify I’m doing what I should be doing or seeing what I should see along the way. I’ve stumbled upon other posts just like the one I’m posting but I can’t help myself! I think it’s because my incubator is on my work desk (I work from home) so it’s like watching paint dry and I need to see something happening.

I’m on day 18 of incubation. Eggs rested for 24 hours after shipment, fat side up, went into incubator on 2/9. I have a janoel12 off of amazon and it does have an automatic turner so they were turned until 2/23- I then upped the humidity averaging about 65-70%. I’ve kept the humidity up throughout incubation (some mornings it would dip low but I averaged 50-55%) and the air cells have slowly increased in size and the eggs I could candle are all full- I can’t see through them anymore.

The temps may have been lower than they should have been at some point but I don’t really know. I was using a meat thermometer and a terrarium thermometer together because the thermostat on the incubator is terrible- I’ve had to recalibrate it several times. The meat thermometer died last week so I added another thermometer and the two I’ve placed inside have been consistent with each other since. I’m keeping it on the higher end of 100 out of caution as it does dip .5 degrees randomly.

I guess my concern is I haven’t seen any movement or heard any peeping/scratching coming from the eggs. I’ve tried holding them up to my ear and I’ve filmed the eggs in timelapse (sped up video) to see if I could see any wiggling when I play it back. Is it normal this late in incubation to see no signs of movement or sound? I’m sure I’ll be eating my nervous words in a couple days... but I love some reassurance or shared experience

 

[Evelit]

So it’s been like an hour and two eggs have pipped. I eat my words already

 

[naf_appaz]

They are often a little late when temps are bit low throughout incubation and vice a versa. If air cells are right size you done good. Depends a lot on where you are hatching, humidity #'s for some one in a dry climate can be a disaster to some one in a very humid climate...I incubate dry and keep my humidity in low 30's for 15 days then up above 70 for lockdown. But I live in a very humid area. Good luck on your hatch! Little quail eggs can shrink wrap very fast and that can be a bad thing, I try not to open up until hatch is complete. If you want to open up while some are still hatching do it quickly...very important to keep it humid specially with a small incubator.

 

[Evelit]

The first two popped out almost instantly- no slow zipping like I’ve seen others describe. Literally out within 30-45 minutes of first external pip.

I noticed another had pipped at the small end of the egg- one of the eggs I couldn’t candle. He’s been poking out of the same hole now for a few hours so I peeled off some shell for him. He’s now pipping the membrane where the shell was removed

One of the chicks does seem to have a curled foot still so I’ll be doing the band-aid trick on him as soon as he is fully fluffed and dry. The first two are already eating and drinking.

 

[Evelit]

So the third chick had what I thought was a slipped tendon, but I cannot feasibly figure out now to straighten the leg- the joint is very rigid. Can anyone tell me if this might be a deformity that just can’t be corrected? I also realize auto correct screwed up my subject line- so hopefully more people who know about coturnix will find this thread and see the pictures.

 

[Evelit]

Update (will likely be the final update for anyone that stumbles across this)

I started with 15 eggs- 3 did not develop past the 10-12 day mark, 10 out of 15 eggs pipped externally. 2 more May hatch so I’m leaving them. At least 3 did not pip their air cells and were in breech. I ended up assisting those because their membranes were getting very dry and on two of the birds, was glued to their faces. They were pipped over 24 hours and peeping a lot but not zipping. I simply broke away some of the egg and membrane, wet the edges with a water/neosporin mix and let them finish on their own.

Unfortunately those three also didn’t finish absorbing their yolks 100%. One died in the incubator after a few hours, another died in the brooder overnight (he was the most “complete” in that his umbilicus was gone but he had a small “hernia”- I have another with this too and it’s fine) and the final one is fine but the funny part is she was the most hampered in that she was still dragging around the shriveled yolk all this time. I cut it this morning as the umbilicus was very dried out at this point and just looked like a bunch of dry grass strands- she is doing well. The final three were sticky so I’m torn on whether to try hatching with lower humidity in the future- hopefully I won’t have such prolonged hatchers in the future that get glued in.

So in total I have 7 perfect chicks and one with a deformed leg. That one seems to be doing ok, but I have my suspicions that might change as they get bigger.