I've been collecting eggs from the quail for two weeks and now it's time to try and hatch! We out together the incubator and for the last couple days been having it on to make sure the heat stays constant!

The day I got the incubator in the mail, husband and I put it together. It was very simple. I think the "hardest" part was getting the quail rails for the auto turner, installed. Other than that, assembly was rather quick and easy. Well, I had to make husband stop many times, or even re-do something so that I could take pictures. "WAIT! WAIT! How'd you do that!? Lemme take a pic!"

We got it together with minimal to no arguing! High Five! Except for me telling him he was ruining my life for rushing to put it together. ;)

The instructions were lacking, but it was still fairly easy to put together. I think it was just mostly nerve-wracking because you realize that your success or failure depends on tiny little eggs that you place in there. If you fail, they don't hatch which means... You killed them... sort of in a round-a-bout way... If you succeed, you get babies!

At the suggestion of the breeder I got my quail from, I ordered this Hovabator from Ebay. I am aware of my own limitations, and... memory is not my strong suit. So, since you have to turn eggs like, five times a day, I decided that the automatic egg turner was a necessity for me to be successful. So I went with the full kit. It's important to know your limitations and try to set yourself up for success, even if it means spending an extra $50.

With this specific kit, it came with "quail rails". That is a part of the automatic turner. The yellow things with holes in them. The holes are just the right size for the tiny quail eggs. As you can see, they are significantly smaller than a medium sized chicken egg.

Pretty sure you'd have to crack at least 3 quail eggs to have one medium sized chicken egg. No wonder they're considered a "delicacy". Haha. Have you had quail egg before? I have yet to try!

So last night, after everything got situated, and I felt like the temperature in the incubator was stable enough, I put my 8 little quail eggs into the incubator to start, well, incubating! How exciting is that? Hopefully, with any luck, we should have baby quail in 23-24 days! I feel like Bobwhite quail take forever... You know Coturnix quail only take 17 days to hatch?

Bobwhite quail are a native species to some of the USA (Virginia). Because they're native to Virginia, you can know what kind of weather they can endure. Bobwhites are known to be more hardy than a lot of other quail species. So for people with cooler winters, Bobwhites might be a good choice.

So, let the count down begin!!

T-minus 23 days until baby quail!

I will try and do some candling to see if they're visibly progressing in a few days!! Hopefully I'll be able to get some photos when I do that! Stay tuned!

Oh, we're trying to hatch more quail in order to have a sort of "sustainable" system of a meat bird. Right now we have only 3 quail, 2 males, 1 female, and we definitely need more. We're hoping to make quail our first meat bird.

If you're interested in my Quail (mis)Adventures, here are my past Quail Posts!

Check out my most recent Steemit Posts.

Blog Series

Nature on the Farmstead - These posts will be educational and informative about the nature that happens on my farmstead. Look forward to posts about wild animals, birds, wildflowers and plants, insects, and more!

As always @farmstead here blogging from FarmsteadSmith!

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