lol, I'm an old man and had no intention of raising any more birds but because of Covid-19 and the issue of food I pulled my incubator out of the garage about a month ago and set it up again. I was scared to death to order eggs online because I wasn't sure if I would get corona-virus from the eggs but I ordered them anyway.
I looked on eBay and found some in North Carolina(Denton) and at that time they had very few cases of the virus when I searched. I looked for how to "sterilize the eggs" before incubation because I was afraid I would be incubating covid-19 in my incubator,lol and found a lot of information on the subject. when the eggs came in the mail I took bleach/h20(1/3 cup bleach,one gallon h2o) and wiped the box,paper work ect. down and then I tried something I have never before tried.
I took hydrogen peroxide 5-7% in a quart spray bottle and sprayed it on the eggs(kills germs/viruses ect.),then turned them and sprayed the other side. I had tip-ped water(distilled) in a pan and after a few minutes I took the eggs and set them in the distilled water to rinse them off and then let them air dry. This is an old trick(patented actually) to sterilize eggs to improve hatch rate. If you put the eggs in the water and they don't lay flat they have lost moisture but in a few minutes they will re-hydrate and lay flat(collected at different times/no more than a few minutes in the h2o).
Then I set the eggs in the foam packing(big end up) until the next day and put them in the incubator. I only have a Styrofoam incubator(LG) that I put an old desk top computer fan in and instead of an egg turner I cut a piece of 1''x2'' welded cage wire(quail eggs fit just right) and so I just grab the wire and pull it and it rolls all the eggs at once(manual egg turner,lol).
It's hard to keep the humidity/temp. correct in a Styrofoam incubator for quail(jumbo brown Coturnix) but I think it best to add no h20 at first because it reduces the size/amount of mass in the egg and gives the bird more room to turn when hatching after lock-down/day 15 I add h20. When they begin to hatch the humidity goes up to 80-90% and the hatched birds wont dry out. I take wash rags and fold them up and put them dry under the 1/8 hardware cloth in the bottom and if needed then I can add h2o to them and also the three h20 places in the bottom of the incubator.
This all depends on the time of year and the humidity at that time though at hatch. If I put h20 in at the beginning(first 15 days) the birds can drown(breathing liquid first 15 days) and then after that they transition over to breathing air(lock down before hatch) and then the oxygen/air flow needs to be increased because the eggs/chicks are inhaling and exhaling in the incubator and will no longer drown but may die from exertion during the hatch(tremendous effort to open egg shell)..
At first the two red plugs were meaningless but after a while I realized that If I could flip them over and cover half the holes or all of it or just a quarter and keep the humidity where I like it(or the birds). I let about 3-4 hatch then open them(reduces humidity and they dry),move them to brooder and then close them and more begin to hatch at about 80% humidity(I guess they can move more easily at 80% humidity). I think that all the failures I've had in the past was because I drowned them by adding h20 at the first 15 days or neglected airflow/oxygen the last few days of hatch.
I hope that I never have to try this again "sterilizing eggs before incubation" but because of covid-19 and the fear of incubating an strain of corona-virus RNA in my incubator(perfect petri dish right?) I thought to give it an try and as I said hope to never do it again. At the moment I have 13 baby quail out of 38 so only 1/3 hatch rate so far which is low as far as I am concerned from past examples. There seem to be others that are still alive in the incubator trying to pip and so this may go up tomorrow or the next day. In times past I would incubate coturnix 18-20 days but have experienced day 25 hatching so will leave it until then and see. At any rate if no others hatch in 8 weeks I from the 13 will be able to collect eggs from them and multiply them from their eggs following the usual incubation practices.