Just wondering whether those of you who breed more than budgies have had any success incubating the eggs of other species under your budgies? I am considering sneaking the odd quail egg into my budgie nests under close supervision, once they are hatched(or in the process of hatching) I will remove the chicks to a heated raising box, but incubators are expensive so I was thinking about using the services of my flying babies until they hatch The eggs of my small quails are about the same size as a budgie egg and the other quails eggs are about twice the size.

I think It could work. I have heard of people using marbles and fake eggs etc, so i can't see why a quail egg would be any different. Especially as the budgies don't need to do any parenting after they have hatched . I look forward to hearing what the others say

I wouldn't tempt fate with a quail egg. Upon hatching it will probably be killed as it is far to obvious that there's a difference in species.

Other species not quite so obvious have been done, but they're all parrot like birds as far as i know.

My quail eggs are way bigger than budgie eggs and they are just button quails.

So it sounds like the eggs themselves probably aren't an issue, the concern is if the babies hatch unsupervised? The other option is I get budgie mum to do most of the hard work and I take the egg out 1-2 days before it is due to hatch. I have a little home made incubator but it is self turned and that is a lot of work for that whole time but I could probably deal with it for a day or two, especially given you stop turning them in the lead up to hatching anyway.

I once put some king parrot eggs under a budgie (as the hen laid them but wouldnt incubate them). The budgie did a wonderful job but 24 hours after they hatched she realised "hey, these arent my babies!" and proceeded to attack them. Lucky I was there to rescue them as she would have definately killed them. I reared them myself and grew into very tame gorgeous birds. I would think twice about doing it again unless I am there to get them out of the nest once they hatch.

okay, well I might try taking them out atleast a day before they are due to hatch and see how I go with that. I haven't got any eggs to put under her yet but I wanted to be ready to do it once the quails start laying again. By the time they get close to hatching I will be finished classes and I'll be home alot so I'll be able to keep a close eye on how things go.

quail eggs only get turned for the first part of the incubation period. After that they're left alone as they position themselves ready for hatching.