Recent content by COsteveo

The first time took a day or two to get over it; I was surprised by the convulsions. Now I can put down a few dozen at a time and it seems normal.

Sharpies and coops are hard to differentiate without having a size reference. I trapped my red-tail using two of my quail as bait and one was literally scared to death.

They do a fall molt as the days get shorter and then stop laying shortly afterward. They can lay continuously but they need that extra light - at least 14hrs per day total. If they have already stopped it may take 2-3 weeks but with enough light they should start laying again.

That should be enough space. Do you have enough light on them?

I used a food processor and it took a surprisingly long time to get all the pellets cut down. I am lucky enough that I can drive across town to get gamebird starter crumbles, which my birds get through all life stages. I tried the finisher pellets once thinking that they would waste less, but...

It's been a while... on 11/10 I culled my ~3 month old F1s down to 2M and 8F, then brought them into the garage and put them on light. No eggs yet. The F1s were not strictly from my biggest birds; I set ALL eggs and have selected the largest from that group. IIRC, both roos were over 8oz and all...

Changing the housing or roomate situation always seems to unsettle my quail; they usually act up a lot for the first 2-3 days and it takes about a full week for them to settle. Remove who you need to remove but my suggestion is to keep things as consistent as you can so they can settle down and...

I am thinking of going the FF route when I ramp up production in the spring. What would be an efficient way of feeding 100-200 quail each day? Is it truly necessary to not let them eat as much as they want? Making the mash is one thing but serving them breakfast and dinner each day is going to...

Do they all have missing heads? that's a great horned owl trademark but other raptors do it as well.

Gotta make a correction here. Left the incubator running and a bunch of them hatched 24-48 hours late. It was either 14 more or 24 more. Something with a 4. I don't remember things well at 6am.

I'm in the same boat. Mine top out at 9.5oz. Would love to get some JMF eggs but I hear there's a 3 or 4 month wait on them right now... As winter approaches I am going to downsize and line breed only the biggest and best. Then back to full-on production mode around the end of March.

Second hatch of the month completed - tried dry incubaton on my quail eggs this time. (Forgot to add water until the 4th day so I just went with dry method to see what would happen.) 118 eggs set, about 85 made it to lockdown, 25 hatched. Not nearly as good as my hatch on Sept. 1 (75/120).

Not shipped eggs, but experimented with dry-hatching my own quail eggs. 118 eggs set, about 85 made it to lockdown, 26 hatched. I figured that would happen but I forgot to add water for the first 3 days so I just went with it. Previous hatch was 75/120.

Looks like all the questions have been answered, but one more thing to think about is zoning. Where I live, to have chickens you have to have a big enclosure and they have to have a fenced-in area where they can run around during the day, AND it has to be inspected AND you have to get a license...

I have not seen any aggression from new additions, however, I have a few newly-mature roos in a brooder with about 45 2-week old chicks, and I did catch one trying to copulate with a chick this morning. Might have to do something if that continues. But, no evidence of other violence.