➡ Quail Hatch Along🥚

[Crazydoglady99]

Phew y'all are back on my xmas card list

Dogs

 

[Kiki]

Phew y'all are back on my xmas card list

Dogs

 

[littleprairieheartsfarm]

He is rotten. Horrible. Mean.
Bad. Worthless.
I wouldn't trade him for the world. He complains constantly.
You can tell in this picture.
View attachment 1663776

Gimme gimme!!! So adorable

 

[RUNuts]

Quail Batch #2 update.
Candled 39 eggs because I was asked nicely and for science. Pull 12 clears. Saw little monsters moving in there. They even waved at me. 27 have made it to day 7. Based on my 90% success rate earlier, I'll hope for 25 hatchlings. Pending a thermostat issue, power outage or other random disasters.

Quail Batch #1 update.
9 little quail running around in their new outside palace. At present, a 2'x2' squirrel cage. Making plans for future accommodations as time permits. Which ain't much.

 

[BReeder!]

So, I got home and ate dinner. Then went and put the chickens up for the night. Then I went to check on the quail. I noticed that our one that was struggling to walk and kept falling was really not doing well still. It was suffering, getting trampled, and lost far too much quality of life - I had to cull this one. They will be 3 weeks old tomorrow. It's a lot different then culling a few that were a few days old with splayed legs that were not correcting. This was actually a bird with feathers and you know... I grew attached! Ahhh! I had to cull it though. It just wasn't right to let the poor little thing suffer.
So I grabbed the sheers and took the bird to the sink. I made sure it was calm and then I did the necessary task swiftly.
I decided that even though it was a small bird since it failed to thrive once it could no longer walk, I would put the meat to use. It's not much, but it's in the freezer now and we will likely add it to a soup pot one day with some others.
I used the spatchcock method and it was quite easy to clean the bird. I was honestly worried that cleaning such a small bird would be messy because I figured I would poke the bile sac or something with the sheers when cutting along the spine. Fortunately, it was quick, easy and clean.
Here is a picture of the cleaned bird on a saucer with a pen for reference:

 

[RUNuts]

I was told, by an old timer, that blackbird gumbeaux is as good as robin gumbeaux. When you don't have much to eat, you eat what you got and be happy. Not much meat, but you get a mess, you won't be hungry.

 

[BReeder!]

I was told, by an old timer, that blackbird gumbeaux is as good as robin gumbeaux. When you don't have much to eat, you eat what you got and be happy. Not much meat, but you get a mess, you won't be hungry.

At least I got over the hurdle of taking a bird I raised and slaughtering it for meat. I guess the respect for this bird's life and struggle pushed me over the hurdle. Odd how that worked out...

 

[CoturnixComplex]

So, I got home and ate dinner. Then went and put the chickens up for the night. Then I went to check on the quail. I noticed that our one that was struggling to walk and kept falling was really not doing well still. It was suffering, getting trampled, and lost far too much quality of life - I had to cull this one. They will be 3 weeks old tomorrow. It's a lot different then culling a few that were a few days old with splayed legs that were not correcting. This was actually a bird with feathers and you know... I grew attached! Ahhh! I had to cull it though. It just wasn't right to let the poor little thing suffer.

View attachment 1663948

I think you did the right thing and I'm glad you were able to use the carcass but that's still traumatic, I'm sorry! Sounds like you handled it really well.

Quail Batch #2 update.
Candled 39 eggs because I was asked nicely and for science. Pull 12 clears. Saw little monsters moving in there. They even waved at me. 27 have made it to day 7. Based on my 90% success rate earlier, I'll hope for 25 hatchlings. Pending a thermostat issue, power outage or other random disasters.

Great minds think alike! I also just got done candling. 33/39 of the eggs from the 9 day old batch look good, 6 are a little iffy but leaving them for now. No new exploding eggs and no more blood rings so don't have to second guess that decision too much! And I candled some of the 2/3 day olds at random and ~80% already look promising.

I'm realizing I may have overplayed my candler a little. I've made it a little condom out of a glove but even with that it doesn't get a good enough seal on the eggs from the side to get a good view of much movement, etc. Still better than anything I had before! Very easy to tell totally clear egg from one with development, detail is just hard to make out in general. I couldn't particularly tell you if my peeps looked alive apart from the fact that they've definitely grown from two days ago.

 

[Kiki]

So, I got home and ate dinner. Then went and put the chickens up for the night. Then I went to check on the quail. I noticed that our one that was struggling to walk and kept falling was really not doing well still. It was suffering, getting trampled, and lost far too much quality of life - I had to cull this one. They will be 3 weeks old tomorrow. It's a lot different then culling a few that were a few days old with splayed legs that were not correcting. This was actually a bird with feathers and you know... I grew attached! Ahhh! I had to cull it though. It just wasn't right to let the poor little thing suffer.
So I grabbed the sheers and took the bird to the sink. I made sure it was calm and then I did the necessary task swiftly.
I decided that even though it was a small bird since it failed to thrive once it could no longer walk, I would put the meat to use. It's not much, but it's in the freezer now and we will likely add it to a soup pot one day with some others.
I used the spatchcock method and it was quite easy to clean the bird. I was honestly worried that cleaning such a small bird would be messy because I figured I would poke the bile sac or something with the sheers when cutting along the spine. Fortunately, it was quick, easy and clean.
Here is a picture of the cleaned bird on a saucer with a pen for reference:
View attachment 1663948

Isn't that the cutest piece of meat ever?

 

[Kiki]

At least I got over the hurdle of taking a bird I raised and slaughtering it for meat. I guess the respect for this bird's life and struggle pushed me over the hurdle. Odd how that worked out...

Did you happen to look to see if it had balls?