Saturday, February 26, 2011

Baby Quail!

My first quail hatch is over. Aren't they cuuute!! I have 24 healthy babies that hatched fine on their own, three died while hatching during the night, I assisted 5 out of their eggs, but 2 of those didn't make it, so I had 27, but three babies drowned in the chick waterer in scarcely a quarter inch of water. After thinking for a minute I put marbles in the water- no more drowned babies. I'm back to 24. Of the other 21 eggs that didn't hatch,... I'm thinking maybe quail eggs don't keep as well as chicken eggs if you wait to start incubation? Or maybe they were not held at their ideal temperature while waiting? ..., live and learn. I think I'll start a new batch, but I'll add eggs to the incubator daily as they are laid. I'll have 7 babies a day at the end, but I can keep them in a couple of groups if the bigger ones start picking at the smaller ones. After a couple weeks they'll be close enough to the same size and I can introduce them to the bigger pen all at once.

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