Do you think it is possible to breed quail from eggs that are bought in the most ordinary chain store? Many argue that it is possible, even try to do it, and these experiments lead to successful results. For example, the user Pikabu with the nickname as91 decided, together with his wife, to test this theory and try to breed birds, describing the whole process in detail.
Why can this be done at all? The pikabushnik-experimenter explains this: unlike chickens, quails must be kept together with males in order to lay eggs. Therefore, some eggs are fertilized, while all hens are not. That is, with chickens, this experience will not work, but with quail - why not?
For the experiment, ordinary quail eggs were purchased in ordinary Auchan: 2 packs of 20 pieces, 1 - 10 each. Total 50 eggs. The freshest ones were chosen - so the probability of some of them being withdrawn is higher. About 10 eggs were immediately discarded due to cracks and chips. The man says that you need to look at the eggs through the lumen in order to see the embryo, but he did not succeed, the spots prevented.
An incubator was used to breed chicks:
The eggs went there for 3 weeks:
Eggs in the incubator, set the desired temperature. Pikabushnik's wife makes bets, believing that 3-5 chicks will be born.
Promotional video:
A squeak is heard on March 27. The first one went!
The chick immediately begins to crawl around the incubator, it is left there for an hour to dry out, and then transferred to a heated box.
This is what a chick looks like after 4 hours:
The day after hatching:
Eggs from which chicks emerged:
So, we managed to breed 19 (!) Chicks!
About a quarter of the chicks could not stand up - their legs parted in different directions. To their displeasure, they had to bandage their paws with thread, and after a day they no longer crawled on their belly, but could stand.
The birds were small, but very active:
Somewhere from the fourth day of their lives, they already tried to take off:
After 3 days, the man weighed the chickens and found out that they weigh 8-9 grams. Quite crumbs:
To somehow calm down the hyperactive birds, I had to weigh them in a glass:
Almost two weeks have passed. During this time, for unknown reasons, one chicken died, and another one dislocated its paw. The rest are fine.
The quails changed their down to feathers:
Very soon, the chickens will leave for a country house to the experimenter's mother-in-law. Thus, the hatchability of chicks from store eggs was about 50%. Not a bad result!