➡ Quail Hatch Along🥚

[muddy75]

I read buttons as buttholes.
My eyes are playing tricks on me!

you’re actually kinda right.....buttons can be buttholes! hahaha

 

[el dorado quail]

My Mexican told me the same thing and guess who put pennies in ziplock bag with water hanging in her coop.


I tried everything.
When I tell you nothing worked...nothing worked and I tried new things each day that week.

And poof they were gone.
And not in my whole yard no...just the coop.

Soooo crazy. I'm pretty sure at grandmas house something tunneled into the wall, died, hatched flies, and somehow they got in the house?
I would move if that ever happened at my house

 

[007Sean]

that’s kinda how i lost the 2nd one.....i opened the hutch expecting to find the little brown one dead because of that cold rain/wind/snow mix that came in and killed a few of my coturnix outside. But in actuality the buttons did really well in the outdoor hutch as they had the enclosed area where their food and water was to huddle in draft free. As i was cleaning the run today, I saw a small hole in the dirt at the bottom (just big enough for a button to squeeze through). the brown one was the most adventurous of the bunch so I’m pretty sure that’s how it got out. Now whether it flew out of the run like the 2nd or simply got squished and died in the run is still unknown. just like my “unfortunate” learning curve with coturnix......if I ever decide to hatch buttons again, I will definitely be more prepared with secure indoor housing!

Yeah, button chicks can easily squeeze through a 1" square mesh.

 

[R2elk]

Oh heck no ...I am not dealing with this again this summer.
I will burn my coop down.

A young Self Blue (aka Lavender) tom stalking a fly.

He was successful in capturing the fly. I have also seen the little ones stalk and capture mosquitoes.

 

[Kiki]

A young Self Blue (aka Lavender) tom stalking a fly.

He was successful in capturing the fly. I have also seen the little ones stalk and capture mosquitoes.

Shaa he is nice!

 

[muddy75]

Deep litter? I don’t know how absorbent pine bark is, but I use pine shavings, pine straw, spoiled hay and straw. Those are the things available to me. Others use fallen leaves also. It has to be absorbent carbon materials and it seems to me that a combination works best. If you start to smell the ammonia, then you need more carbon. I use this in the coop and the run. In the run it will compost. If the coop has no floor, it will compost there, too. Clean out once or twice a year and spread the composted litter wherever you need fertilizer. If the coop litter isn’t composted yet, you can add it to the run or put it in a compost pile to finish.

i was wondering if adding compost enzymes to the run would be beneficial?? I started out spreading straw but shoveled it all out after about 4-5 months and switched to pine bark, crushed brick, and sand mixture. Then I started spreading the pdz weekly in the run and the coops. In the coops I use pine shavings but I remove them every couple of weeks and replace with fresh. i haven’t tried leaves yet but i still have a bunch. When I shoveled out the straw base, I put it in the aviary area and raked it out just before putting down the clover seed. My biggest issue is that this region (Southern Indiana/Ohio Valley) is now considered one of the rainiest, wettest areas of the entire US!! we have a thick clay soil with horrible drainage problems! A wet chicken area is a stinky chicken area!!

 

[CindyinSD]

We’ve been having an awful lot of wet going on here, too. I just keep adding carbon. Hay, mostly. My cows waste a lot of hay. I guess that’s just part of being a cow. I don’t like the run being soggy but water is basically running through the bottom half. The chickens love it.They seem to be eating something in it, but I can’t see anything.

There used to be a creek; it’s on the old maps. Then the forest grew up so thick and for decades... way longer than we’ve been alive... the pines grew thicker and thicker. Now there are so few of them left (pine beetles) that water is running again, but no channel for it. We got a tractor with a backhoe last fall and I’m going to dig a channel if the ground ever gets dry enough to drive on.

But what I’ve been doing... I toss in more old hay and anything else I can get my hands on. I’m going to put all the bedding from the coop from winter down there next dryish day. It may be that it doesn’t smell yet because it’s actually flowing somewhat so it’s not going stagnant.

 

[CindyinSD]

And now it is snowing.

 

[muddy75]

I ran out of time to get more yard work done after dinner (while the boys are at the movies) but I treated myself to a long hot shower, started dishes and laundry, swept floor, and have cleaned and cartoned over 6 dozen chicken eggs so far!!! (only 10-12 dozen left to go)

 

[007Sean]

Candled 201 eggs last night, only 17 clear. 24 were shipped eggs, only 2 were clear. 1 of the shipped eggs was rotten on arrival. 1 was broken. The rest should be hatching in 10 days.