Buttercup's Jumbo Co op .....

[mhwc56]

So i was just wondering about the birds from Buttercup's eggs that she distributed...What's everyone's progress to date?
my browns at 8 weeks are in the area of 10-12 oz.,the whites ,which were the biggest at hatch are 7-9 oz. and the Golds are 9-11.50 oz.
almost all of them are hens .

 

[Fat Daddy]

Quote:
Hey I was think'in the same thing just a few days ago and never got around to digg'in up the thread. Mine are almost 10 weeks old and I ended up with 23. I got all browns, 9 hens, 14 roos. Kept all the hens, and the 5 biggest roos. 2 hens are smallish, around 9 oz. Biggest hens are right at 12 oz. The strange thing is 2 of the roos are over 13oz. Yes, my two biggest birds of the group are roos! I moved them to a outside pen when they were about 5 weeks old. Which I figure was about the time they were thinking about starting to lay. I got my first eggs the next day(3), and then t5hey quit. I'm sure moving them screwed the egg laying deal up but I was'nt after early eggs anyway. They started again in about 10 days. 1 or 2 a day for a while and then a cold front came in and rainy week shut them down again. We were trying to start laying again and a Ferrel cat moved in and was harassing all my birds at night for a while before I knew he was in the area. I sprayed the cat with 6MM's of "kitty-b-gone", and the eggs have just started again, 2 -3 a day.

This group seems to be what I would consider "outside the norm" for coturnix in a lot of ways. Roos larger than hens for one. I have had no fighting in the breeder pen at all, nobodys missing any feathers at all. When I have the roos in a pen alone, they crow and mock-roo each other as one would expect. They fight, pull feathers and do all that a coturnix roo should do, when in a roo only pen...

But not once have I seen one cover a hen, or crow while in the breeder pen. I'v seen hens do the little "Im ready" dance like a hen chicken would and still no effort put forth by roo. May just be miss'in it all, but all other coturnix I have raised, the roo would wear himself out while I was feeding and such.

I have 3 roos in with 9 hens, a ratio 1 to 3 in the breeder pen. I would have expected a roman orgy type love fest of biblical proportions by now, but nuthin.....

The only thing I can figure is the roo pen is inside my shop, and the breeder pen is outside beside the Bobs. Being outside may "spook" them in some way. I dont know... Im guess'in we'll get used to it and "gett'er done" at some point... Bill

 

[kahlertm]

Good work guys. You know I have been waiting, stalking you.

Bill, could the Bob's be intimidating your young roos? Anyhoo, they will figure it out in time. Like I have heard you guys say so much...patience is key with birds.

Great job guys.

Tonya

 

[RiverOtter]

I had a bad hatch, and a bunch of hens die around 5 weeks from what seemed like excess fluid in the body cavity, like a broiler chicken. I gave them some chick starter (lower protein) for a couple of days and stopped loosing them. I also switched brands of gamebird feed as I lost some other hen quail, older, and in a different pen, in another area from the first, at the same time. The only thing that was the same was the feed.
Just in time for a young goat to destroy a quail pen and set them all loose, along with my daughter's Fawns.

I've still got 2 pair, and hope to catch another hen before the cat does (hubby caught it and lost it). But they are laying and EVERY egg is going into the incubator. Yes, the roosters are very heavy. They don't look a lot bigger, but when you pick them up, WOW. Chunky birds.