Baby Quail

We walked into our home the other day and immediately heard chirping noises.  We followed the sound to our new incubator that was loaded with quail eggs.  Baby quail were hatching out of their eggs all at the same time.  What a sight that was!

That’s a hatching baby quail.

We should have taken all the little quail eggs (41 total) out of the egg turner and placed the eggs on the wire mesh inside the incubator a couple of days before they were expected to hatch.  I didn’t.  Everything turned out okay though because we were able to take the babies and the automatic egg turner out.  We put the rest of the un-hatched eggs on the wire mesh.  It would be sad and irresponsible if one of the babies got caught in the automatic egg turner after hatching.

Our “Little Giant” incubator from Tractor Supply.

Coturnix quail eggs are supposed to hatch in 17-18 days.  Ours hatched in exactly 20 days.  We kept adding eggs into the incubator so they’re 3 days apart.  We expect more to hatch today and tomorrow.  We already see a couple of the little eggs rocking back and forth in the incubator.  I put a colored dot on top of each egg with a sharpie to tell us which date the eggs went in.

Quail eggs in the incubator with the automatic egg turner taken out.

After the first set of quail hatched, we let them dry in the incubator for about 30 minutes.  Then we put them all into a bin lined with paper towels and a 100-watt bulb over them.  I put a thermometer in the bin to keep their temperature at 99 degrees.  Each week I’ll lower their temperature. I’ll change their bedding from the paper towels to something less slippery in a few days too.  I haven’t figured out what I’ll switch to yet.  For some more information on raising baby quail check out raisequail.com.

Baby quail in their bin. I don’t recommend the shell as a watering container. I took it out right away. They could easily drown in it.

Our quail  aren’t good parents.  I’ve read it’s from the captivity.  So, after having our 12 quail for over a year, we decided we should get an incubator and hatch them ourselves.  We purchased the incubator and the automatic egg turner  (goes inside the incubator), from Tractor Supply.  It came with a good instruction manual. 

Our experiment turned out to be a success.  The babies are so incredibly cute.  The best part is that we were able to watch them hatch out of their eggs.  We were all yelling, “oh my God” and “get the camera!”.  It made the incubator worth every penny.

They love being in our hand this way. It must make them feel safe. How cute is that?

Come grow with us!

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