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  1. 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...
  2. 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...
  3. 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...
  4. 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...
  5. 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...
  6. 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...
  7. 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...
  8. 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...
  9. 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...
  10. 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...
  11. 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.
  12. 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...
  13. 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...
  14. 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...
  15. 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...
  16. Susan Skylark

    Disaster Themed Hatchalong and guess the hatch rate on scrambled shipped eggs

    Finally got my bakers dozen of jumbo ginger coturnix quail eggs. They spent a week in the mail, temps have been hovering around freezing (potential cold exposure), and we have saddled and mobile air cells in multiple eggs (sign of severe shipping trauma), this might be a dumpster fire hatch...
  17. Susan Skylark

    Selling your eggs before they are layed? Presaling eggs, tips and tricks?

    Not sure where to put this, wasn’t sure anyone would see it in the pheasant board, and we discuss shipped eggs here all the time, just not the shipper part! My question is does anyone pre-sale their eggs from their unique breed/species? If so, any tips and tricks, how do you set prices, what...
  18. Susan Skylark

    Who got murdered? Novel pheasant sounds

    So somebody just got murdered in my garage or at least that is what it sounded like! I got home from work, parked the car, said hello to the birds, and went in the house, only to have a sort of screaming/toddler tantrum sound erupt 30 seconds after I shut the door. I hurried back outside but...
  19. Susan Skylark

    Red golden pheasants, when do they start laying?

    I now have a pair of these lovely birds, I’m still not sure they aren’t AI generated! The guy I got the hen from said they start laying at 2, the internet says 1 year old. Which one is it? I’m actually leaning towards the interwebs on this one, the hen has tripled in size in the two months...
  20. Susan Skylark

    A quail tale

    Just another Saturday morning, just another quail alarm call from the garage. Went out to check, everybody seemed fine, then it happened again and then again, but still nothing. Finally popped out to put some calcium in the feeder and found my problem. I had a rogue quail who wanted back in...
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