How long can quail hatchlings stay in incubator while chicks are still hatching?

[PoppeCountryEggs]

I am hatching quails and chicks. Quails were started 3 days later. Yesterday morning (day 17 for quails, day 20 for chicks), the first quail hatched. Then other quails followed. 2 of 22 chicks hatched in the late evening (of chick day 20). My question is: tonight it will be 36 hours since the first quail hatched, but only the evening of day 21 for chicks and day 18 for quails.
Should I take the quails out this evening (and risk shrink wrapping of the eggs that will still be hatching), or leave the quails in for 48 hours or even longer?

 

[casportpony]

Welcome to BYC!

You should take the chicks out as soon as they are fluffed up. The sooner they start eating & drinking, the better.

The occasional opening of the incubator will not harm any of the eggs.

 

[PoppeCountryEggs]

Ok, thanks so much. So many posts about not opening the incubator while chicks are hatching made me worried about doing that.

 

[Susan Skylark]

Quail shouldn’t be in the incubator longer than 24 hours post hatch, especially with chicken chicks bumbling around! Taking them out every six hours is fine, just spike humidity a few minutes before and be ready to quickly open, grab, shut incubator.

 

[PoppeCountryEggs]

Thanks, Susan, everyone. I did take the 9 quail hatchlings out, most of them had been in there for over 30 hours, and they were totally fine. They did not mind the chicks bumbling around, as they are so much more agile, and seemed to use the fluffed up chicks as surrogate moms.
The little quail crew also worked tirelessly helping pipped chicks out of the shells by pecking through the membrane, where they found it exposed. But I figured that showed how hungry they are.

I put a very damp hot towel over the incubator before opening it to take quails and fluffed chicks out. Humidity still dropped from 73% to 59%, but went right back up after. I had more chicks hatching since then, so I guess it was ok.

So far, 17 chicks out of 22 have hatched, with one more working its way out now. However, no more quails have hatched since early today (day 18), so I am a bit disappointed, its only 9 out of 18 quail eggs. I had much better hatch rates with quails before.

Maybe the quail eggs were kicked around too much by the chicks that had hatched? They were all pushed to the edges.