What Can Cause Poor Hatch Rates When Raising Quail?
There can be a number of reasons for quail eggs not hatching. Breeding, feeding, and management of the egg production flock; care of the eggs before incubation; and the incubation environment: these all cause bad hatch rates
When raising quail, you absolutely need to know how to care for the quail eggs and your breeder stock. If you don’t do it properly, here are some of the problems you may have:
1. Candling your quail eggs after about 7 days of incubating, the inside of the eggs are clear with no blood ring or embryo growth.
Possible causes for this problem:
a. Infertile eggs.
b. breeding quail not compatible.
c. quail eggs not being stored properly, Quail egg storage area below 40 degrees.
d. Eggs held to long before incubating.
e. Eggs taken from storage and put in incubator before reaching room temperature.
2. Candled quail eggs are clear with some blood and small embryo.
Possible causes for this problem:
a. Incubation setting to high.
b. Storing eggs improperly, temperature below 40 degrees or above 60 degrees
c. Eggs taken from storage and put in incubator before reaching room temperature.
3. Dead embryo’s before hatch is due.
Possible causes for this problem:
a. Quail eggs not being turned enough.
b. Lack of oxygen
c. Incubator to hot or to cold.
d. Breeder’s not getting a good layer diet.
4. Chicks pip but do not hatch.
Possible causes for this problem:
a. Improper humidity, not raised by 20 percent 3 days before hatch.
b. Incubator temperature to low during incubation period.
c. Temperature may have spiked without your knowledge.
5. Eggs hatching early, with abnormalities.
Possible cause for this problem:
a. Temperature to high
.
6. Quail eggs not hatching on time.
Possible cause for this problem
a. Temperature not at proper hatching temperature.
7. quail chicks hatch and show early problems.
Possible causes for this problem:
a. Breeders were inbred’s.
b. Breeder stock were not managed properly.
c. Incubator set to hot.
When raising quail and incubating your own eggs, every hatch is not going to be great. Sometimes you may run into problems. What I have listed above is just some of the problems you may have and some possible causes.
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To find out more about raising quail visit:
How to Raise Quail.com
Copyright © Gary Ortlieb
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I enjoyed reading your post and the information contained. Just a friendly FYI….your reference to: ‘to hot or to cold’ is using the wrong “to’….there are 3 different ones with 3 different meaning. The ‘to’ that should be used is: “too”. Joe n Colorado
Thanks Joe,
I would be willing to bet that 99.9 percent of the people that read this post were only interested in the information provided on raising quail. You however, took the time to read it and check it for grammar mistakes. I really do appreciate that.
Me and my dad have been raising quail for about a year now. Last year we bought eggs off the internet and incubated them, now they are laying eggs and we can’t seem to get them to hatch. We have a still air incubator and the humidity and temperature are both right for both incubators( we have a seperate incubator to put them in 3 days before hatching). We candled the eggs and discarded the bad ones 7 days into incubation. The eggs seem to be doing good and growing normally in the eggs but don’t hatch. ( we opened one to check and see if they are growing right and the chick looked normal and the inside of the egg was moist. What could we be doing wrong?
What kind of humidity are you running in your hatcher incubator? Are you running 80% steady with no downward flucuating. This is an absolute must. Did you break the one open between the incubator and placing in the hatcher or after being in the hatcher. Sometimes it can take longer than 3 days for the chicks to hatch. You say everythings seems normal with the quail chicks growth. Have you candled the eggs while in the hatcher and actually seen movement or are they dead before reaching the hatcher. Do you disinfect your incubators between each batch of eggs. One other thing, just because they show normal growth doesn’t make them good eggs. If you are doing the things I mentioned above, you may want to buy your eggs from someone else to try.