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    Our little EE mystery!

    Introducing Goldy~ we just can't be sure it's really a she! She's 13 weeks old, and we already had to send away her 4 crowing brothers, who were definitely boys, with big combs, the feathers, the attitude! But Goldy we just don't know. She has no comb to speak of, but her body is so gangly and...
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    Pleeeeaaaze be a hen!

    We have 4 that we hatched. The one I'm most concerned with was one we had to break free from the shell, 'unshellac' from the hard encasing of membrane, and one that jumps on my SO's shoulder when he crouches to feed them from his hand. The are 10 1/2 weeks old. #1 chick is Elle. For comparison...
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    cheap run out of PVC shelf!

    I'm about as unhandy as they come. I needed a chicken run to house 8 meaties. I have no drill, no power tools, little in scrap. This is what I came up with! I used the remains of a pvc shelf, the kind you buy at Home Depot for around $15. I only had to hand saw and cut some of the PVC to the...
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    Just a few meatie chicks?

    Okay, I've gotten past the suburban-horror-at-processing part, and now I'm thinking I'd like to raise a few meaties. I live on a small suburban lot, though, and I might have 30x20 feet of finished vegetable garden area that I can put a movable tractor for them. I'm thinking I could raise maybe 5...
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    timing replacement quail?

    So I've read here that people replace their quail after 8 months to keep up the egg production. I was thinking that I could hatch a new 'batch' every Spring to replace them, but then my 'old' birds would be around 1 year old. Could I still process them or would they be too tough? Thanks!
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    Ate my first quail

    ...and darned if that first bite wasn't delicious~ the tenderness surprised me! Not too gamey at all, and not like chicken. Very lean. As harrowing as it was for me to go through my first processing, I'm already thinking of incubating some of those eggs my young hens have just started...
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    I did it!!

    Oh, it was hard. But I processed my first birds today, with a co-worker that's a farm girl! Such pretty birds, the hardest part really was the cutting of their heads. I didn't have to bonk them, after I held them, they sort of laid their heads back as if in a faint. If I waited too long, they'd...
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    Noisy quail II

    Oh. my. gawd. The darn roo quail started up at 5:20 am and have kept it up for 2 hours!!!! They're quailMcnuggets!! They're not even 7 weeks, but too bad. Maybe the hens can wait until 12 weeks to process, but the roos are dinner as soon as they start the AM crowing next time! AND my Maran...
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    Trying to get the courage to process...

    This has been going on for weeks! Of course it's helping that out of the 18 that I hatched, 12 are males! So that's 11 in the 'bachelor' pad that are beginning to crow at all hours... I tried to look for quail in the grocery store to see what it tasted like, but all I could find was Cornish...
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    ...I wish cortunix WEREN'T so sweet!!

    I now have 13 wonderful little quail in my converted rabbit cage. And 7 are male. Which means I'm going to have to get the courage to process the 5 or 6 'extra roos' and since I believed from reading that they weren't as personable as chickens, I would have an easier time as a first time...
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    Maran, maybe it's NOT a roo!

    I have 2 Marans, one Birchen and a Blue Splash. The BS is def. a roo. It's comb is much bigger in comparison to all my chicks, and it's turning red already. So if they're BOTH Maran, wouldn't they both have the same comb development by now? I have a Welsummer roo too, same kind of comb...
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    OMG!! My very FIRST baby quail!!!!

    Sooo cute!! It just hatched, so tiny. It's adorable!! Yay! I'm a quail momma!!
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    mismarked Maran egg?

    The egg that hatched was marked as a Birchen Maran. The little roo, now 2 weeks old, is still black with a light throat. All the feathers coming in are black. I also got from the same breeder Black Copper maran eggs, although none of those eggs hatched. Also, I do have a little Blue Splash roo...
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    dry hatching quail?

    I have 58% humidity here...which seems unusual for the 'dry' California central valley. I have quail eggs ready to go in, and I'm thinking I might try a 'dry' hatch, especially with these readings! I've been reading, at least with some breeders of Marans, that they've had more success with dry...
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    5 day olds...he crowed!!

    ...I was taking a nap...it sounded like a cell phone trill. I heard it 3 times, witnessed it the last time. The darn chick was crowing!! A blue splash maran. I can only have hens. Out of 43 eggs, only 8 hatched. Lost one today. One of the 2 Welsummers I know is also a boy from his markings...
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    Gullotines and hypnotizing...

    I'm still working myself up to the deed, and of course the biggest problem for me is dispatching the chicken. Now from the recesses of my memory, I recall a gadget like a guillotine! I found this part from an old 1970's Mother Earth News: First, instead of using a chopping block and axe or the...
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    How many should I keep??

    Yes, I know. Counting my quail before they hatch, but I have a converted rabbit cage that's 31/2' x 3'. It can be divided into 2 sections. How many quail would be ideal for that space? How many roos and how many hens? I know the 1 square foot per bird, so 9 makes sense, but would that be 2...
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    Changing incubator temp for quails?

    I've read monarc's thread (WOW, awesome!) and know that quail is 99.5, and it can range from 99-101 or so, but still I was wondering with those with a Genesis 1588 like mine or others that are factory preset, do you fiddle with switches and change the temperature of your incubator from the 100...
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    Anyone know a poultry processor around Sac, CA?

    I checked craigslist, I googled, I tried the yellow pages. No luck. I've never eaten any chicken besides the one packaged in plastic at the grocery store. I'm hatching a number of eggs, and the roos I can't sell, I thought I'd get them processed and see if I could tell the difference. Thanks!
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    Classroom chicks - pics!

    Here are a couple of picks of babies hatched in my classroom. We held them (taking turns with supervision for 5 minutes between 20 children and 5 chicks) and they're just too cute for words! The pics with the students are even better, although I can't post those! They're 2 weeks old, and...
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