I am onto my next scheme! Haha. I have started on breeding guppy fish as a future feed source for quail. I had a short trial run with coturnix quail earlier last year but had to sell off /:
Good news though is soon enough i will hopefully have my job transferred and be able to try again with quail! So i am plotting away lots of ideas. I would love to hear yalls input and ideas on these.
1) button quail seem to be much more common to be motherly to chicks. And much more heard of to go broody.. full hatching out or even just a few days broody. Whereas for coturnix its pretty much a resounding nope and adults will very most likely kill chicks introduced to the pen.. even new adults are known to be brutalized by some grumpy cots.
1a: Ergo if i am gonna get a quail line that gets broody fair often at all its gonna be buttons.
1b: i will need to do lots of research into the natural habitat of their ancestors they come from. And try and tap into how the currently bred ones seem to go for becoming broody.
So heres my current outline idea...
1) Lots of plants! Hopefully in pots settled somewhat even with the "ground level" of bedding. Close to natural as possible. I need to figure out good plants.
2) Good lighting. On a timer for daylight schedual. Could i figure out a dimmer setup to simulate dawn and dusk?? Could that affect them?? Could more natural light activity help kick into other more natural instincts??
3) deep litter method. Quite deep to level with the plant pots. Heck maybe even work toward a more soil like base and naturally planted indoor pen??
4) make very natural looking nests. And many of them scattered about. In comparison to chickens it seems a broody chicken can get brushed off by nonbroodies who just want into any nest to lay their egg and somehow it means that spot the broody wants. But the poor broody keeps getting up for all the other hens. I wonder if this could correlate to quail? Lots of natural material to use if they want to make a nest or the premade nests i would make to look like what i find native wild ones look like.
5) would having an indoor "winter" with on purpose shortened like nature days and slightly less food... then lengthened out again days and up the food again? Simulated change of the time of year? Would that help boost a natural urge of "oh hey! Spring! I should make a nest/ lay in one spot/ broody it up and hatch out a clutch!" ??
Input welcome!
Good news though is soon enough i will hopefully have my job transferred and be able to try again with quail! So i am plotting away lots of ideas. I would love to hear yalls input and ideas on these.
1) button quail seem to be much more common to be motherly to chicks. And much more heard of to go broody.. full hatching out or even just a few days broody. Whereas for coturnix its pretty much a resounding nope and adults will very most likely kill chicks introduced to the pen.. even new adults are known to be brutalized by some grumpy cots.
1a: Ergo if i am gonna get a quail line that gets broody fair often at all its gonna be buttons.
1b: i will need to do lots of research into the natural habitat of their ancestors they come from. And try and tap into how the currently bred ones seem to go for becoming broody.
So heres my current outline idea...
1) Lots of plants! Hopefully in pots settled somewhat even with the "ground level" of bedding. Close to natural as possible. I need to figure out good plants.
2) Good lighting. On a timer for daylight schedual. Could i figure out a dimmer setup to simulate dawn and dusk?? Could that affect them?? Could more natural light activity help kick into other more natural instincts??
3) deep litter method. Quite deep to level with the plant pots. Heck maybe even work toward a more soil like base and naturally planted indoor pen??
4) make very natural looking nests. And many of them scattered about. In comparison to chickens it seems a broody chicken can get brushed off by nonbroodies who just want into any nest to lay their egg and somehow it means that spot the broody wants. But the poor broody keeps getting up for all the other hens. I wonder if this could correlate to quail? Lots of natural material to use if they want to make a nest or the premade nests i would make to look like what i find native wild ones look like.
5) would having an indoor "winter" with on purpose shortened like nature days and slightly less food... then lengthened out again days and up the food again? Simulated change of the time of year? Would that help boost a natural urge of "oh hey! Spring! I should make a nest/ lay in one spot/ broody it up and hatch out a clutch!" ??
Input welcome!
