hi all, my first time breeding poultry,i have never kept poultry before,a friend loaned me an incubator and brooder because I was looking for another type of bird to breed as I already keep finches,and wanted another interest,he also gave me 7 cpq eggs to put in the incubator,before I did I thought I had better look for information,i found the poultrykeeper forum while I was looking around the internet and thought I would read the site. well what a brilliant site, after reading well into the night(5am) I decided to apply to become a member,well after scouring the site for information I decided to put the eggs down and after 16 days I now have 5 lovely bouncing baby cpqs,the only thing I cant find is how long I leave the 2 remaining eggs in the incubator before checking why they didn't hatch,may be that they where clear, what are the thoughts of people on dry incubation until starting to pip, I can only say what a brilliant forum,i have already decided once these little ones are off heat I will be getting another 12 cpq eggs to see if I can achieve 100% hatch,at the moment I am one happy chappy,keep up the good work everyone take care.and thanks. ian
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- Thread starter lecky
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Hi Ian, and a big welcome to the Forum. I'm glad you're having such success with your cpqs. They're such beautiful babies, aren't they? Small as they are, it's still amazing they managed to fit into an even tinier egg. What are you feeding them on?
I would think that, if no sign of pipping after 24 hours, best to discard the eggs as most probably they will turn out to be infertile, if the others all hatched so easily.
I got the info on dry incubation from Sarah Barrett, who has bred thousands of quails, mainly coturnix, as were mine, but the process is the same as for cpqs. She always hatches dry unti, they start to pip, and says she's had good success rates even on one or two occasions when she forgot to add any water at all at the end. So I went with her advice and like you, got good hatch rates by this method. Maybe it's because in the wild quails tend to come from hot, dry environments so have evolved to manage on less water, though in the UK the humidity in the air being pumped through the inci is usually around 45% anyway.
Of course 100% hatch rate is the aim, and you seem to have the bases all covered as far as equipment and technique are concerned, but you're still at the mercy of egg fertility. Still, you seem to have a good source of supply from your friend, and this is a good time of year, when the parents will be in full breeding condition if they're young birds.
I'm interested in your finches as well - what kinds do you breed? You must be used to rearing tiny babies though I imagine the finches would do more of the job for you. When my kids were young we had budgies breeding in the top level of the chicken run and the hens below, it was a bit like a block of flats.
I would think that, if no sign of pipping after 24 hours, best to discard the eggs as most probably they will turn out to be infertile, if the others all hatched so easily.
I got the info on dry incubation from Sarah Barrett, who has bred thousands of quails, mainly coturnix, as were mine, but the process is the same as for cpqs. She always hatches dry unti, they start to pip, and says she's had good success rates even on one or two occasions when she forgot to add any water at all at the end. So I went with her advice and like you, got good hatch rates by this method. Maybe it's because in the wild quails tend to come from hot, dry environments so have evolved to manage on less water, though in the UK the humidity in the air being pumped through the inci is usually around 45% anyway.
Of course 100% hatch rate is the aim, and you seem to have the bases all covered as far as equipment and technique are concerned, but you're still at the mercy of egg fertility. Still, you seem to have a good source of supply from your friend, and this is a good time of year, when the parents will be in full breeding condition if they're young birds.
I'm interested in your finches as well - what kinds do you breed? You must be used to rearing tiny babies though I imagine the finches would do more of the job for you. When my kids were young we had budgies breeding in the top level of the chicken run and the hens below, it was a bit like a block of flats.
Tim
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Thanks for the kind comments Ian 
Tim
Tim
hi marigold,i also keep,zebras,bengalese,silverbills,javas,hecks and diamond doves,i am feeding the cpqs on very finely crushed chick crumbs at the moment,i was just wondering how old the chicks need to be before just feeding the whole chick crumbs.yes all of my parent finches do all of the chick rearing I use seed,softfood,greens,fruit,grit,cuttlebone and seeding grasses and sprouted seeds.yes they are cute,my granddaughter has named them all lol,she is only 4,well thanks for the welcome,still got more reading to do,and very interesting it is,so take care.hi tim thanks for welcome. keep up the good work everyone on the team. ian
Thanks for adding me to the forum. We keep chickens at present for eggs, we don't breed them. We are shortly altering our chicken run and the original one is planned to become a fruit cage, using trugs for growing. We would love to start keeping quail, again, for their eggs. I am aware that they can fly up and they also do not have the same appetite as chickens. Would we be able to keep the quail in the fruit cage, or would they fly up and eat all the fruit?
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Hi Kays, and welcome to the Forum.
Quail do fly up like little helicopters if alarmed, so some kind of a roof or netting is necessary, but they are ground-feeding birds most of the time and just like to creep around on their little legs, rather like min-chickens in that respect. They might perhaps like to nibble an occasional piece of fruit, but certainly wouldn't fly up to eat it from the stem. A fruit cage would be a lovely home for them, if you could provide dry conditions, sheltered from winds, especially in winter as they are native to hot, dry countries and susceptible to damp, cold conditions. I found the mine liked little ground-level shelters to hide in, and would snuggle up together in these when the weather was bad, although mostly they just seemed to sleep anywhere, out on the ground, and didn't seem to roost like hens do. They won't go up a ramp into a coop or rabbit hutch, but a fruit cage should be nice for them as they would enjoy feeding and sheltering under the bushes. However, you'd have quite a job finding the eggs, as they lay them all over the place!
Quail do fly up like little helicopters if alarmed, so some kind of a roof or netting is necessary, but they are ground-feeding birds most of the time and just like to creep around on their little legs, rather like min-chickens in that respect. They might perhaps like to nibble an occasional piece of fruit, but certainly wouldn't fly up to eat it from the stem. A fruit cage would be a lovely home for them, if you could provide dry conditions, sheltered from winds, especially in winter as they are native to hot, dry countries and susceptible to damp, cold conditions. I found the mine liked little ground-level shelters to hide in, and would snuggle up together in these when the weather was bad, although mostly they just seemed to sleep anywhere, out on the ground, and didn't seem to roost like hens do. They won't go up a ramp into a coop or rabbit hutch, but a fruit cage should be nice for them as they would enjoy feeding and sheltering under the bushes. However, you'd have quite a job finding the eggs, as they lay them all over the place!