We recommend letting your eggs rest, pointy-end-down for 12-24 hours before incubating. This allows the egg to come to room temperature and the air cell to settle back in place at the top of the egg. Set up your incubator a few days before and have it running with a separate thermometer and hygrometer in the unit to be sure it’s maintaining appropriate temperature and humidity before you start incubation. Not all readouts on incubators are calibrated correctly and false readings are extremely common.
Viability begins to greatly decreases 10 days after the egg is laid. Be sure you are ready to incubate immediately after your eggs have been allowed to rest.
We recommend a temperature of 99.5 degrees F and humidity of 45% or less for incubation and 55-60% at lockdown.
If you decide to candle your eggs, we recommend candling the eggs on lockdown. For quail eggs, a dark egg with an air pocket is developing. We do not recommend inverting the egg with the blunt-end down while candling. Always keep the air cell in the blunt end upright whenever possible. Handle the egg as little as possible.
Once you have placed your eggs in lockdown (on day 14 for quail, day 18 for chickens), do not open the incubator, especially if the eggs have pipped (cracked). Doing so creates rapid changes in humidity that can cause the membrane inside the shell to stick to the chick, which can suffocate it. Leave the chicks in the incubator while they are all hatching. Chicken chicks can survive in the incubator for up to 72 hours, quail chicks should be removed in 48 hours or less - 24 is preferred.
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