Covey Chronicles

[chrissynemetz]

I'd like to get a collection of quail noises on video some day, though it might stress out some quail. I think everyone has heard the "Co-turn-NIX" crowing, and it's easy to find it on youtube, but I think there's a lot of other sounds that are less well-known. Here's what I've heard so far:

Crowing: I've seen it said that female quail can crow, but I don't think I've ever seen any quail keepers on this forum report this. Sounds about as close to Coturnix as chicken rooster crowing sounds to Cockadoodledoo, which is to say, quail crowing sounds more like Err-err-ERRRR. Males will stand tall and their whole heads will shake with their crowing. As far as I can tell, males will crow to call the rest of the covey.

Growling: Only roos will make this noise, and it seems to be a sound of displeasure. It sounds like a rusty 'rrrRRR'.

Egg song: Hens will typically make this sound after laying, and it sounds like a cartoon bomb dropping with laser gun shots. A descending whistle with a 'pew pew pew' sound after it.

Locating call: Hens will make a cricketing 'ree ree ree' sound to call to the covey - I've seen hens make this sound in response to roos crowing or when they're away from the covey. I've also seen them make this sound when I approach the cage - no idea if they're calling *to* me or warning the rest of the covey. Typically it's one of the more...dominant? hens who calls in that case.

Peeping: Typically a sound made by chicks and rarely by adult birds. It's pretty much what you expect - a high-pitched "peep-peep-peep" sound. We had three adult birds who would do a louder, screamier version of this and it seemed to enrage the other birds - especially the roos, who would chase them and scalp them.

Some calls I've personally never seen described elsewhere:

Chatting: I've only really heard this from our male, Sugar, and typically while he's alone with us humans or with one hen. It's quiet and chirpy - I'll make this noise back at him and it sounds like "pi-chi' and 'chi-chiriri'. It doesn't seem to be a frightened or angry noise - not sure what this noise is for.

Threat noises: Seems to be different between males and females. My husband had accidentally put Jason in with Sugar and they would make this noise shortly before getting into a fight. I don't have a strong memory of this noise, but iirc was a constant, almost ululating noise like "bi-bi-bi-bi-bi." Pudding, our hen, made a similar noise when she was attacking Sugar, but it was...chirpier?

If you get those sounds recorded let me know. I'm very fascinated by all the different noises they make.

 

[scyllarus]

Ugh. So - not entirely related to our current covey, but sort of - we're hatching out a loooot of chicks for the future. Several people in our community are excited about the idea of quail - I'm not entirely sure why quail vs chickens, but it seems like it's hit or miss whether the park will come down on you for chickens. Doesn't stop one of our neighbor's roosters from crowing all day, which is...frustrating, to say the least, when one of our friends had to rehome her hens for no particular reason.

Anyway. I'm a little unhappy because I wasn't ready to expand like this, and because we finally got the coveys settled down and peaceful. But - to be fair, I'm also waiting on a whole lot of celadon eggs to hatch, so we were going to have to integrate birds into their specific coveys anyway.

I think my current plan is to keep our current celadon roo (who came from someone who claims they ordered eggs from SW Gamebirds) for breeding purposes with the current celadon batch I'm waiting on (which just came from Ebay). I think I'll keep a few of my favorites - thinking Pudding, Mousse, maybe a couple of sparklies - and just keep mostly celadons with them. The others + some of the hatching eggs right now will be split amongst the people who are interested in them. I'm probably going to have to pick up some more hatching eggs...and set up more brooders/grow out cages. Ugh.

Aside from that, I'm enjoying boiled quail eggs finally. I really like the ratio of yolk to white, and they're easier for me to peel than chicken eggs.

 

[scyllarus]

Ugh. Not a good final hatch from our own hens - something like 6/20ish, and two passed yesterday or this morning. I think they simply didn't figure out where food or water was - the neighbors were watching them until yesterday, and then we were too tired to check up thoroughly on everyone. I had to feed a chick some sugar water today to get it to perk up again - but it did and it seems like it will fully recover.

We have one celadon chick from some eggs I ordered off eBay! Fingers crossed for the next few days - I feel like we always get the first chick and then it takes 24 hours for everyone else to get going.

In non-chick news, Flan seems like she's gone broody??? I didn't think their enclosure was natural enough to trigger that behavior, but she's been sitting in a cardboard box for at least two days straight. She does eat and drink, and I saw her picking at some new greens I put in from where she was sitting. I don't know if she's actually sitting on eggs since the box is on the other side the big cage, which is 4 feet wide. Nonetheless, I'll keep watching her - it'll be interesting to see if anything comes of it. None of the other hens seem broody, though, but maybe they'll start feeling some sort of way with Flan being broody.

 

[scyllarus]

Ugh. Two bad hatches - we have 5 chicks total now. Three of our own, two celadons. Sigh. I don't think we did anything wrong with the celadons, so I'm just...going to wait until we're closer to spring to try again with shipped eggs. Just so disappointed, honestly.

Anyway. Cream has an injured eye and seems somewhat uncomfortable - I think it's because she squabbles with Jason. She's eating and drinking, and no one else seems to be affected, so we'll just keep an eye on it.

We took all of Flan's eggs and moved them to incubation. She was just getting overwhelmed with other birds laying eggs in the nest - but despite moving the cage around, including the box that the nest was in, the birds are still using the nest. Guess we'll see if anyone else becomes broody.

 

[scyllarus]

Slightly updated layout:

 

[scyllarus]

Now to introduce the adults, finally:

From left to right: Brownie (jumbo brown), Cookie (rosetta?), Flan (dilute?)

Left to right: Cookie again, Cream (rosetta with white chin), Jason's butt (in box), Pudding (in box) Flan again

Left to right: Mousse (tuxedo), Butterscotch (less speckled italian) and Blondie (more speckled italian)

 

[scyllarus]

Got a video of the disgruntled quail sound. Jason, the roo, makes it most often, but I've seen hens make this noise as well. It's always an unhappy sound and is usually accompanied by mild pecking. In this case, we had to remove their feeder because the food got wet. They did have food on a pan all yesterday, but must have run out this morning and were hungry enough to fight each other over the protein crumbles.

 

[scyllarus]

Did some eggtopsies today. Most of the celadon eggs quit pretty early, or didn't develop at all. A few did develop most of the way :c

I know some people are squeamish about snakes and other "creepy crawlies", so heads up, I keep several of those things too.

My big male bullsnake is proving to be a real boon in these cases. He'll eat just about any sort of meat, so if the chick is developed enough, he's happy to dispose of it for me. He can't seem to figure out how to eat the more...liquid parts, so that's been a bit of a mess, but overall it's nice to make use of a bad situation. I would rather have live chicks, but why waste the poor things?

 

[scyllarus]

Brief update with the holidays: currently dealing with the most disorganized staggered hatch ever. We have...three that are about 2 weeks old, four that are 1 week old, and then one hatched out from the incubator on 12/27. No other hatches but :/ the baby is doing okay with the older birds but not going to lie, I'm worried about it. We're still travelling (visiting family) and so I don't really have a choice but to put it in with the biggest chicks.

On the bright side, I really only need to hatch out enough for 2 people. So that's good??

One of our hens seems to have a cold. She's been eating and drinking, and the other quail aren't ill, so we've just been watchfully waiting. She's been getting better over the past week or so.

 

[scyllarus]

More angry quail noises. These two came from the same seller and are both hens. The aggressive hen has since stopped being aggressive - I think she might have been about to lay, I recall hearing an egg song before recording.