Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

Jaye..that is awesome....I have zero experience with quail so this is all interesting to me...

Jaye wrote: ↑

Sun Jul 14, 2019 6:59 pm

I had the best day today. Yesterday was Day 16 of quail incubation (Day 15 is lockdown for quail - Day 18 is official hatch day) and we had a surprise early bird. Day 17 - today at 7 AM we had a power outage that lasted for 5 hours. At 8:00 AM we had chick #2 hatch. At 8:30 we got the inverter plugged into the hatcher and running. There were a few hiccups... I was shocked at how fast the temp plummeted in the incubator. Anyway, about an hour later, we had the popcorn effect happening. We never expected this kind of hatch rate: We have 1 rooster (Silverman) in with 14 hens.
I got most of them into the brooder late this afternoon, plus a few still in the staging area (incubator, feed and water available) drying off. I just went up to check on the hatcher and another one has arrived. I never expected this kind of hatch rate. So far we have 28 and counting. This is huge, because quail eggs are notoriously difficult to candle, so most people don't bother, myself included. I tried. I failed. Anyway, given that I expected half to be infertile, I have to concede that Silverman has been busy.
Oh, by the way, quail chicks are so stinking adorable.

Wow, how exciting! How many eggs did you start with? Oh, 28 new little bitty quail babies, you guys must be beside yourselves!

Yes, @windwalkingwolf , we are quite surprised. And a little shell-shocked. I think there are 35 chicks in the brooder now - and six more hatched out overnight. Today is supposed to be official hatch day (day 18). I will do a count of eggs left still unhatched this afternoon. I think I set 63, but will have to check my notes later. I know that sounds like a lot, and it is, but my thinking was that half would be infertile, and given my first experience with our incubator, I figured I'd be lucky to get 25% hatch rate, and half of those would be male, so they would only be with us until they were finished growing out.
Yesterday evening we had to give a little one with spraddle legs some physiotherapy time (leg exercises within the confines of a shot glass). It made a huge difference.

Jaye wrote: ↑

Mon Jul 15, 2019 8:00 am

Yesterday evening we had to give a little one with spraddle legs some physiotherapy time (leg exercises within the confines of a shot glass). It made a huge difference.

Lol, Jaye..I am trying to imagine this

baby quail are adorable! totally! i did find though that one had to be super careful putting in the waterer....and feeders....because it is possible to put on down on a chick and not even notice! Congrats on the babies!

15 birds to new homes yesterday. My neighbour wanted a few....so we loaded them up for her, a bit of food...she went home and about an hour later i got a panic text "HELP!". LOL. i had told her to lock them in the coop for the first few days to get used to it, which she interpreted as "run" instead of "coop". let them go in the run and they promptly flew over the fence LOL. so 930 last night we went over with the clippers and did some wing trimming....did get them all into the coop and safe and sound for the night....it's a learning curve....as we all know well!

dispatched a coon from the place we are taking care of and then promptly caught 2 barn cats. hm. barn cats like potato chips. go figure. they're free again.....only another 10 days....we'll set the traps again next weekend, but with work i can't check the traps through the day, so don't want to catch something and have it sitting in a trap too long! especially when there's got to be at least 11 barn cats there. horse is still upright....dog is too amazingly, given the attitude on that thing. so, so far, so good i guess.
processed 22 boys on the weekend and now the ducks are much happier. they're 2 muscovy ducks and the chickens were picking on them mercilessly! so now they can go in and out and use the pool without any harassment. the older free range girls leave them alone. they discovered the flies in the manure pile yesterday! and are out puttering around more and more every day. they're super fun to watch.

I know, it sounds weird, but it works! I had tried the bandaid and the vet wrap splint method, neither of which would stay on. Have you ever tried putting Band-Aids or vet wrap on tiny little quail chick legs? It's nearly impossible. After several attempts I gave up. I googled for another solution and found the shot glass physio method. It has to be tall enough that the chick can't pop out when it pushes against the bottom of the glass. I popped the chick in the shot glass, and put it back into the incubator. A couple of 30 minute sessions with a break in between is all it took. It sounds mean, I know, but it's not. The chick just had a nap whenever it got tired, and I made sure it had been drinking water before and after. The results are amazing.
A photo of a section of the hatcher after yesterday's popcorn event:

What are the different colours? Totally adorable!

@Killerbunny , I have no idea, really: They are all mixes, because our rooster, Silverman, is a Silver colour variety, and we have Golden Italian, Manchurian, Rosetta, Tuxedo, Silver, Tibetan, Calico, White and standard Pharoah/Wild coloured hens. It should be interesting to see how they turn out. DH has just texted me to say there has been no further hatching since this morning at 8. Phew! Let's hope all that viable eggs have hatched now.

Yes quail chicks are adorable, enjoy your babies Jaye!

Congratulations!