Well, about 3 weeks ago I fired up the old incubator that I put away last year and put a bunch of my eggs from my 6 mature Coturnix Quail.
The incubator did it's job well and I now have 8 little bundles of energy bouncing around inside the incubator. (I will be posting pics as soon as my crappy camera/phone cooperates with me).
Because of all of the selective breeding that has occurred throughout the years to get this kind of bird, the Coturnix Quail has lost all instinct to brood. Hence the incubator.
A person could use a very small banty hen to sit on the eggs (which I have one and she VERY MUCH has the instinct to brood, sometimes it's hard to get any eggs because wants to sit on all of them.
If worse comes to worse, I will do that, but for now I will use the incubator. It increases the hatch rate and reduces work.
Anyway, my plan is to basically keep the incubator full of eggs and every 3 weeks put in another batch. By the beginning of fall I should have enough of a cycle to allow me to butcher 4 - 5 each week to add to my VERY locally sourced food. 1 quail is not much meat, but every little bit helps.
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