Photos

size difference between a Hens egg ( left) and a Japanese Quails egg (right)

The first chick hatching

Getting Ready

Setting up the Incubator

Incubator

The conditions needed for Chinese Painted quails incubation is a temperature of 37.5 degrees C and a humidity of 45%.

You need to make sure these conditions are meet before placing the eggs in ready to incubate.

 Thermometer

To keep track of the temperature make sure you have a thermometer inside the incubator.

 If the temperature is not right then there is a possibility that this will either speed up or slow down the development of the chick, this is bad because it could disrupt the development and lead to deformities of the chick.

Hydrometer

You will also need to put a hydrometer inside the incubator to keep track on the humidity.

The humidity should remain around 45% before the last few days in order to keep the shell hard enough to protect the chick during its development. The humidity is especially important during the last few days when the chick is ready to hatch, at this point the humidity needs to be raised to 75% so the shell is softened to allow the chick to break though.

Day one: introducing the eggs

When storing the eggs you want to make sure you keep them with the point of the egg facing down and keep them at room temperature around 25 degrees C. they should be left to settle like this for about 12 hours before they are put into incubation.

When the eggs are put in the incubator they should be pointing down, it would also be useful to use something like cotton wool or kitchen roll to keep them from rolling around and getting damaged. if they are damaged there is a high possibility the egg wont develop.

For Chinese Painted quails it will take up to 12 days before the chicks start to pip and 16 days before the eggs to hatch. but this varies between the type of quail.  

Development inside the egg

Fertile/infertile

For a chick to come from the hen’s egg it needs to be fertilised by a cockerel otherwise it would just be a normal infertile egg without any chick in it that we can eat.

Day 1

By the end of the first day during incubation

· the head

· eyes

· nervous system

· Blood

have started to form.

Day 4

• The heart starts to beat
• The fluid that the embryo (developing chick) floats around in and feeds from is formed, this is called the ‘amniotic fluid’.

    Things that start to develop are,

• Legs
• Wing buds

Day 8

Things that are nearly formed are,

· the wings

· feathers

· legs.

Day 10

Bones also start to form about this point so the embryo starts to look like a chick.

  Day 13

• The feathers gain their colour.
• The beak and egg tooth (special tooth on the end of the beak that helps it break the shell) are formed
• Scales are formed
• Claws are formed
• The fluid is all used up leaving only the yolk as the food source.

Day 15

• The chick has eaten all the yolk
•  The muscles in the chick to twitch so its beak breaks through the air cell where it breathes in its oxygen and uses its lungs for the first time.

Day 16

• Chick starts to twitch again but this time its beak hits against the sides of the egg.
• The beak will break through and you will be able to see the its beak popping out if the shell, this is called ‘piping’.
• You will be able to hear the chick cheeping.

Setting up the Brooder

The Brooder



The Brooder is where you put the chicks for the first two or three weeks.

·         The brooder can be any sort of secure environment away from anything that could harm the chicks such as other animals or harsh weather ect.

·         The brooder should have proper ventilation so the chicks can breathe.

·         The brooder needs to be big enough for all the chicks to freely move around

·         The brooder should also have some way to control temperature  

For my brooder i have used a large plastic box with a vent attached to the side to allow ventilation and a light fitting to allow the heat needed from the light bulb.

Heat

·         The chicks need to be put in a brooder at around 32 degrees C to start with for this you can use a 40 watt light bulb.

·         the temperature should be reduced slowly to room temperature while they grow their own adult feathers to keep themselves warm.  

Ventilation

       Ventilation is extremely important as the chicks need to be able to breathe properly. You can find brooders with ventilation systems already in place or you can attach a vent to a homemade brooder.

Food

·         Newly hatched quail chicks eat chick crumb, you can buy this in most pet shops or online. You need a shallow dish for the crumb so that the chicks can easily get to it.

·         A good tip would be to scatter a small amount of the food on the floor near the chicks to ensure they are able to get to it   

·         Food must always be available to the chicks so make sure you keep the dish full

Water

·         Again for the first few days use a shallow dish for the water that the chicks can easily get to.

·         You must make sure that the water is shallow enough so that the chicks cant possibly drown in the water.

·         A good way to do this is to use small clean pebbles, so you can fill the dish with them allowing the chicks to drink the water from the small gaps around them.

·         Be sure to change the water every day and keep the dish clean

Comfort

·         For the first couple of days it is a good idea to place something like a towel or a cloth on the ground for the chicks to move around on. This makes it easier for them to move around as their legs are fragile and can easily get injured when if they slip or fall. The towel allows the legs to grow stronger before moving around on the solid ground.

·         The brooder must be kept as clean as possible to avoid bad germs spreading.

·         On the ground it is best to use something like sawdust because it absorbs all the chicks mess making the brooder easy to clean

Hatching

Day 17

The chick breaks through the shell and spins as it cracks the shell almost like a tin opener from the inside, until the top of the shell is popped off by the chicks head and the chick has hatched.