We are excited about this experiment. We are studying flying creatures in our science book. This has proven to be MUCH more interesting that *I* was expected. The kids begged to try to incubate some eggs when we studied egg development. I had to give this some thought. We’ve tried this once before and got no chicks….but WHAT would we do with the chicks if we got some? I was not sure I wanted the kids to have the educational lesson of incubating an egg and then letting a chick die. Our book recommended links to buy incubators. We chose a small one from Home Training Tools; it came with 4 quail eggs. Quail live in the wild here. IF we get some quail chicks and raise those to the age that they can survive….we can let them go in the country….but our best option is some friends who live out in the country.
Last night we set up the incubator (see pictures below). We discussed the need to keep water in the incubator and to turn the eggs every 12 hours. The eggs come all wrapped p and there was the possibility of two different kinds of quail. We all hoped for the brown speckled eggs, as they take only 17 days to incubate. The drama built as we unwrapped the eggs and discovered 4 brown speckled quail eggs. Now it’s a matter of waiting, and watering and turning.
We’ve started gathering the things we’ll need for the box right after they hatch. We are even now talking about buying a bird cage and we need to do some research on WHAT to feed them as the booklet that came with the incubator just mentions “food” but not what.
Our brown speckled quail eggs
Dad and three youngest scientists
We’ll have to guard the eggs!
3 comments:
Zander just saw the picture of himself and said "that's me Alex, looking at eggs"...problem is I suspect he's done more than look. We'll see....
Zander is so cute in that picture. It does tend to be when they look the cutest they have been getting into mischeif! I had never seen Quail eggs before. Thaose are very interesting with the speckles. I may ask DH if he wants to build some sort of quail house/ enclosure so we can try this. A friend used to have quail and they can be fine in our winters with a good shelter. Something to think about. I don't want to ever do chickens again since we always get a rooster that is mean or too loud for even our far away country neighbors (read transpanted city folks who don't want t hear a rooster at 5:00 am!). It will be fun to follow your Quail journey. I'll show this to the kids when they come in for the night. Finally warm enough to be outdoors here!
Good luck with your eggs! We did quails about 2 years ago. The good news was we had 100% hatching success. The bad news was we had 100% hatching success and then found out it was illegal to have them and to release them! I hope you checked out TX laws first! :-)
Post a Comment