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    How to get guard dog puppy used to my animals?

    This might should have been posted in the general discussion forum, but here goes. I'm raising quail and rabbits in an urban back yard. They're all caged but come next spring I'm going to set up grow-out tractors for both, which will increase their exposure somewhat. I get nighttime visits...
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    What to do with aggressive silver fox rabbit doe?

    I posted a couple of weeks ago about a rabbit doe that fainted when I was trying to remove her from her cage. By the next day she seemed perfectly normal, and continues to appear to be in fin health, but now she attacks me whenever I try to touch her. She rares up and lunges at me and bats...
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    What's been eating at this quail egg?

    I'm hoping one of you more experienced fellas might have seen this before and know what it was that broke into this egg. This is an odd-shaped and odd-colored egg for my (cotournix quail) flock (I think) because one of my roosters went psycho a couple of days ago and stressed-out the hens. I...
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    Do roosters get mean as they age?

    The hens in my most productive cage are so beat-up, I moved the rooster into a hospital cage and I might retire him. They're all about nine days from being a year old. I keep five hens and a roo in this particular cage, and he's always been pretty rough on the hens. In the last week they all...
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    Rabbits fainting?

    Yeah, I know this is a question better asked at back yard herds but there's a hiccup with my account over there and I don't have the time or the inclination to straighten it out so I'm asking here. Can rabbits faint? I tried picking up a 7 week-old silver fox doe (I bought for breeding meat...
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    How old before you give up hope of hens laying?

    How old can a cotournix hen get before you give up on her ever laying an egg? I have seven that hadn't laid an egg at 12 weeks. Then at the twelve week mark, I moved two of them into a breeding pen because that rooster had lost two of his hens (not obviously killed by the rooster), and I...
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    Estimating boneless weight from bone-in & spatchocked carcass?

    I'm working up details for an acquaintance who said he'd like to know more about my quail-raising project. One of he things I'm sure he'd like to know would be the cost of feed versus the amount of meat that comes from it. The problem I'm having is -- and maybe it's me but -- when I butcher...
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    Can you stop quail roosting in their drinking cups?

    For a couple of weeks I've been having excessive water consumption in both my breeding pens. It normally takes three days to go through the entire jug of water but for three nights straight it mysteriously ran empty overnight. And the poop pans beneath the cages (autozone drip pans) have had...
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    Dead hen raises questions about rooster management

    I have two jumbo brown breeding pens, one with five hens and one roo, and another that until today was four hens and a roo. Now #2 is down to three hens. Earlier this week I noticed one of the hens in breeding pen #2 had a spot picked bald on the back of her head -- feathers plucked but skin...
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    Stupid rabbit question (feeding kits)

    I'm not calling rabbits stupid, it's my question that's dumb. I'm about to order cages to start raising New Zealand whites for meat. I know the objective is to aim for slaughter at about five pounds but I can't find a reference stating specifically whether you can get them to that age by...
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    Cotournix using the hide-out you gave them?

    Has anyone given their Cotournix a hidey-hole, and then seen them using it? If so, what did you make it from? (Pics would be nice)
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    What is this organ and is this coloration normal? [Graphic image warning]

    What is this organ and is this coloration normal (undiseased)? This is my first slaughter of the birds I raised from eggs and I was taught to be leery of organs that were spotted or off-color. The problem is, I extracted this through the anal vent (enlarged by the removal of the cloaca) so I...
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    Condensation on inside of brood box?

    Is there anyone else using a plastic tote for a brood box that's holding so much humidity that water's running down the walls? I'm heating with an infrared lamp in a 6" reflector that sits on an 8"-diameter hole in the box top that's covered with hardware cloth. I'm hard-pressed to believe...
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    Tips on keeping flighty quail chicks in the brood box?

    My jumbo browns are 7 or 8 days hatched and when I lift the lid to do brood box maintenance, most are testing their wings and several of them are able to get within two or three inches of the top of the box. At the rate they're growing and feathering-out, I'm sure it won't be more than two days...
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    Diagnosing quail eggs that didn't develop

    Other than not being fertilized, what might cause cotournix eggs to show no sign of an embryo after incubation? I bought the eggs locally and none had been laid more than 48 hours before I picked them up. On the trip home I handled them like, well, ... eggs ... and within 24 hours they were in...
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    How long for quail chicks to dry out?

    Sorry about the "new papa" jitters, but it is what it is. My first chick hatched shortly after midnight (an early "bird," on second day of lockdown) and as of this moment I have two more newbies. How long (as a rule) does it take them to dry? Late this evening I'll move the dry ones to the...
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    Greetings, Earthlings!

    I've joined up here because I've got my first backyard farming project under way. My quail coop is about a third finished (took a pause to re-evaluate my design and construction method) and I figure I could do worse than use you folks for "tech support." (1) Are you new to chickens / when did...
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