Search results for query: *

  1. Susan Skylark

    McDonalds Law, alive and well!

    I’ve tried isolating a couple hens and a young ginger male for a month for hatching eggs, between his youth and the cold, I got 4 male chicks (2 mutant) out of 13 eggs (7 infertile, 2 died at hatch). My American pansy male is getting old so I swapped him out for my inexperienced ginger boy...
  2. Susan Skylark

    Quail vs chickens, hatching differences?

    I’ve hatched a hundred quail but my rental chicken eggs are about to hatch this weekend (a friend ran out of incubator space) and I’ve never hatched chickens, what can I expect as far as differences, especially pipping? Quail have tiny, hairline cracks you can barely see, google seems to think...
  3. Susan Skylark

    Developmental/congenital defect, anyone seen similar?

    I hatched a few coturnix quail ten days ago, the eggs were cold exposed (so stressed) and a relatively high percentage of birth defects (2/4 live chicks with 2 dead in shell/failure to hatch) is not unexpected. Wry neck, scissorbill, umbilical hernia/unabsorbed yolk sac, and other well known...
  4. Susan Skylark

    The color is ginger but what else?

    This guy is out of my jumbo ginger hatch, so obviously he's ginger, but I'm not certain on base pattern (italian?) and think he might also be sparkly as well, any ideas? Thanks! Just hatched four chicks with this guy and a bunch of italian hens. They all look italian as well (and are all male...
  5. Susan Skylark

    On raising teenagers and pheasants

    I have a 13 year old who has a golden pheasant. Today said teenager was supposed to be leaving for school with his dad and sister. Except he was standing by the pheasant pen (in our garage) instead of in the car. His pheasant was also walking around the garage and the net had vanished...
  6. Susan Skylark

    Not a quail but could be!

    The pheasant board is pretty quiet, so I’m posting here about my honorary quail’s antics (really a hen red golden pheasant). The male pheasant seems to have a bit of a brain but his lady friend isn’t much brighter than your average quail. I finally figured out why their water cup was always a...
  7. Susan Skylark

    My own private hunting preserve or egg farm?

    My son came home and told me our quail don’t count as an ag commodity (meat, milk, eggs, wool, crops, feeder calves…) for some project his ag class is doing, apparently we raise quail for personal shooting enjoyment and not production? This is news to me, I couldn’t differentiate a shot gun...
  8. Susan Skylark

    The Disaster themed hatch-along’s frozen (not the movie) hatch along?!

    Yes, you read that right, and it is as grammatically correct, or as much as I can make it! I had some scrambled shipped eggs (jumbo ginger coturnix quail) in a hatch along back in November, they hatched thanksgiving day and I’m going to start collecting eggs from them this week (plus a couple...
  9. Susan Skylark

    Quail eggs and twenty below

    “Ground stood hard as iron, water like a stone,” and the quail eggs are frozen too! I was happy with keeping the water flowing this weekend, I wasn’t going to worry about eggs! I think I’ll try baking them (cracked shells) whole, blenderize them, and feed them back to the birds in small...
  10. Susan Skylark

    Feeding frozen eggs back to your birds?

    So -25F and quail eggs don’t mesh well, they freeze solid in under half an hour, and as I have a life, and figure that they have water a couple times a day so that’s something, I was wondering if I could bake the eggs in the cracked shell, cool to room temp, blenderize the whole thing and feed...
  11. Susan Skylark

    Quail and supplemental calcium

    I usually feed a high protein chicken layer feed to my coturnix with some supplemental Ground egg shells for a couple big celadons that otherwise like to lay soft shells. Due to an issue getting feed (three different stores in 3 states were out of just that particular type) I’ll be feeding an...
  12. Susan Skylark

    Red golden pheasants: what to expect when you’re expecting?

    I could just Google it but the interwebs can be sketchy, sorry gen z, AI isn’t omniscient! I’ve got a pair of red golden pheasants, the male will be 2 and the hen a year old this spring. I’ve spent the last 2 years incubating and raising too many coturnix quail, so that part of the process I...
  13. Susan Skylark

    Individual variation in sensitivity to light for seasonal laying?

    Have you noticed a difference between individual coturnix in their sensitivity to seasonal lighting for laying/mating hens? Last winter my laying and male activity was no different than the summer, this year I'm running about 2/3 on egg production and only one of my 3 males is currently...
  14. Susan Skylark

    Figgins on the rampage! A humorous baking anecdote.

    I’ve had a loose pheasant, a rogue chinchilla, even a missing snake, but what is a Figgins? Figgins is the name of my various sour dough starters throughout history (a mix of flour, water and various yeast/bacteria which ferment the mixture, used in baking bread). And yes, apparently it can...
  15. Susan Skylark

    Zombie clones or goldfish?

    Today was nice (45F, we’re talking January in the northern Midwest!) so i spent the morning catching up on bird chores, cleaning the brooder, culling a few extras, refreshing bedding, etc. I also went through and updated the list, only to discover I was missing a bird, count as I might I...
  16. Susan Skylark

    Shipped Chick Poll

    I’m curious about your experience with stress in shipped chicks (GI, respiratory, etc), particularly your average rate of chick death and illness within 2 weeks of getting your birds? I’m talking average or overall, not one particular disaster shipment here.
  17. Susan Skylark

    Cute blonde baby pictures!

    Half of these little buggers are shipped jumbo ginger coturnix the rest are home grown eggs (italian/pansy/roux lines) but they are all a bunch of little blondies! I had to mark them at hatch (had separate incubators) with a little blue marker to tell them apart until they can keep a band on...
  18. Susan Skylark

    Golden pheasants and power tools?!

    We’ve been working on a larger run for our golden pheasant pair, our workspace and bird space is the garage. They’ve gotten fairly chill with the idea of people, assuming they can see you and you don’t do anything unexpected (like come through a different door!). But as we were working on the...
  19. Susan Skylark

    Yes, coturnix quail are domesticated!

    I’ve seen a few old posts here and there asking if coturnix quail (not new world quail!) are domesticated/tame/friendly and being a relative newbie I wondered the same, our local 4-H poultry expert was so uncomfortable with the idea she didn’t want to test them for the fair. After owning and...
  20. Susan Skylark

    Amateur deer hunters anonymous!

    I couldn’t tell a rifle from a shot gun two years ago, but my kid took hunter safety and decided he wanted to go hunting. I got volunteered to take him because I’m good at taking dead stuff apart. He’s gotten doe tags the last 3 seasons and will get a buck next year. Tonight we sat in the...
Back
Top Bottom