Incubating Quail; Japanese and Chinese Painted

I've just popped around 120 Quail eggs into my MS Broedmachine incubator.
I bought 24 Japanese Quail eggs and 108 CPQ eggs but after candling them a couple had cracks in their shells so I didn't put those in the incy.

Due to hatch around the 17th/18th Feb!

Quail chicks...

Obsessed with hatching...

Lewis has gone from broody to obsessed!

I thought about setting a few quail eggs in my incy at Uni, got a bit carried away and bought 40 eggs from a breeder and another 36 from the Organic shop on my street who said they are fertile - they're due on the 21st, Nat's birthday.
'Cos of that and already having 12 bantie eggs in my Octagon 10, I needed another incy so my friend Lee saved the day + lend me his! :)

Then, I was on eBay and saw an MS Broedmachine incy on there. They're the best you can buy, made in the Netherlands and so don't often come up for sale... so I kinda bought it!

Is in Nottingham so ma friend at Uni there has collected it for me and I'll go pick it up.
One of these:

Annie, ma pekin, was on 3 eggs due this weekend but only one has hatched so far - a Speckled Sussex x Araucana which if is a girl should lay green eggs. Not sure if the other 2 will hatch late or not at all.

 Have got ma brooder ready for the quail chicks too (if they hatch)!

Is a Hagen Vision bird cage (like eglu's for budgies!) which has a deeper tray than my indoor rabbit cages so should keep them warm. I've got a big double height one of the cages for ma Diamond Doves and really like them!

Got Your Number

Thats my attempt for an egg competition thing!
Its on Omlet competition to win £20 so I thought I'd enter just for the hell of it. The bodies are chicken eggs + the heads are quail eggs. Painted with tippex + the red is drawn on with sharpie.

Eggs

The doves have laid another egg and have been sitting on it for a few days. I've candled it really quickly and I can see veins, meaning its fertile and so hopefully it'll hatch. I'll try and get some photos of the fertile egg later :D


I sent some quail eggs out today for someone to try and hatch!!
It felt a bit strange to think back to when I got my little eggs, hatched them and raised them and now they'll have babies of their own and will never see them! Thats one of the good things about eggs, you can send them to another part of the country and introduce new bloodlines really easily.

Adult Died

One of the 2 female adults has died.
There is a biscuit tin in the hutch for them to use as a dust bath, and she was inbetween that and the wall, so I'm not sure if she got trapped and died, or if there was another reason.
The other one seems fine.

New Candler

I've bought a new pen-candler.
It was only £5 off the internet. You use it to look inside eggs while they're hatching so you can tell if the egg is fertile and if there is an embryo developing inside it.

If the egg is fertile, when it's candled you can see the blood vessels inside the egg.

It's a lot smaller than the one I made, so it's easier to use.

Chicks are laying!

The chicks are now laying! We've had quite a couple of eggs laid in the corner of the hutch!
The adult females are still laying everyday, so we've got quite a few quail eggs now! :D

Bleeding Wing

One of the Adult females as a bleeding wing. I'm not sure if she knocked it, or the other female has been pecking at it. It seems to be ok now, and has stopped bleeding.

Names

I think I've named the quail, but can never tell them apart anyway. I think I'm going to buy some coloured leg rings so that we can tell them apart.
2 Adult Females:
Maggie
Aggie

Chicks:
Male - Arthur
3 Females:
Martha
Mildred
Gill.

Swap around

All of the quail are out of the house, and in the side passage now, and the guinea pig is in the side passage too for the winter.
The 2 adults are in a hutch on their own, the guinea pig is in a hutch on top of theirs, the chicks (3 hens and 1 cockerel) are in their own hutch, and the remaining 3 chick cockerels are on their own in the brooder in the garage so that they can't see/hear the girls and fight.

Adult hen

Chick Hen

Chicks' House

Guinea Pig

Eggs

We've had 8 eggs so far from the adult quail, and I think the male has gone for good :(
The adults have been in the run in the garden with the quinea pig today, but it's too cold for them to live outside.

The chicks are doing fine, and I don't know why the little one died.

RIP Little Quail

The smallest chick out of the 8 has died.
I don't know why, as it has survived for 4 weeks.

RIP Little Quail

The male hasn't come back so we are down to 9.

Male

Still can't see him, the girls are out in the run, so they might make enough noise to bring him back.

Lost

I was putting the adults away for the night and the male just jumped up and flew over the fence. We asked the neighbours to look, but we couldn't see him anywhere :(

I've left the hutch and run open for the night and the girls are inside, hoping he will find his way back.

Egg!

One of the adult quail has started laying!

There was a little egg in the cage tonight when we got home.

:D

Huge

The chicks are looking huge now, they are nearly 3 weeks old.
They are still in the brooder, and are eating chick crumbs now, not turkey crumbs, just because they don't sell them in the shop we went to.
There is one little one, which is 1/2 the size of the others! but he/she is the best one.

You can start to see which ones look like girls and which ones look like boys, but I'm not 100% sure yet.

The adult female's head has healed well, and I'll keep them with the male in the day, but not over night.

Fighting

The adult male has been a bit too rough with the girls and ones head is bleeding. I've separated him into a rabbit hutch outside, annd left her inside with the other girl.

I'll leave her a few days to recover and then re-introduce them in the rabbit run in the garden.

Growing Up

The chicks are huge compared to last week, and the adults look even bigger now next to them.

The adults are about 9 weeks now, and should be layin soon. I've put a lamp next to them, on in the morning and when it gets dark, so that they have 14 hours of light, and to encourage them to lay.

The male has been chasing the 2 girls round, trying to mate, so hopefully they'll start laying soon.

The chicks have grown loads since last week, they're 9 days old now. They are still eating Turkey Crumb, and will do for a few more weeks. Most of their wing feathers are grown, so they are hopping up and down in the brooder and jumping about.

:(

The umbilical cord chick has just died :(
I wasn't expecting it to live but it's still a shame.