Texas a and m are very hard to sex. Pharoah are the easiest and can be reliably sexed at 5 or so weeks. Before that mario says boys slip through ( interesting fact per dh non dominant boys get boy coloring very very late)
T a m 's can only be sexed once they start to foam or when they get " fat bellies" but it takes at least 6 months of squeezing quail to tell that.
let me know if you find a local processor! i've been psyching myself up for processing chickens, but would like to at least like to learn with someone who's done it before first...
Sorry for the double post...but I need advice. The fuzzies on the Bay Area thread perked me up and so have the quail babies! Love them! But we returned home from vacation yesterday to receive bad news. My favorite little blue silkie hen passed away while we were gone. We don't know what from. My neighbor tells me she just found her, no marks, so could have been the heat although she had lots of shade and water in the yard. She was more like a dog than a chicken. Followed us everywhere and talked to us while we did yard work/BBQd/relaxed....... always dust bathing nearby. She will be missed.... my concern now is for my remaining silkie - her hatch mate. She is now all alone as she and her sister are separated from the 3 big girls due to bullying. She is about 2 years old now so I don't know what to do.... will she be okay on her own? Or should I try to find another Silkie to keep her company? Any thoughts, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
So sorry that you lost a girl! And of course it had to be a favorite!
We lost one to heat this past week, also. I don't have any experience with lone chickens but I would think that your remaining one would be happier with a friend.
My quail pens were old pidgin pens I modified. They are all wire except for the back.
I use a tidy cat cat litter box for the dusting box. That is 3d and gives hiding spaces in the back , a place to jump up on , and makes a nice obstical course for when a head quail wants to chase. Wash you sand or use play sand if you use a top so they dont colletct dust . dont want them breathing dust.
There is a nice old redwood box on the other side worn smooth from being used since 1970 or so on the other side also sideways for them to sit in and climb on.
I find with that much 2 level space i can fit a few more birds then recomended and they are happy. My quail seem happier in 10-12 sets rather then 4-5 sets. As long as the roos can get away from each other.
The other type i have is a 2 tier with boxes on top and equine pellet bedding on the bottom. I have a pladtic 8.5x 11 in box type thing on the bottom to act as a box. It gets the same bedding in it prety quickly but they still prefer to sit and dust bathe in that.
The top level is wood where the ramp goes up and wire elsewhere. There are 2 boxes one covererd one uncovered and a ramp up to the boxes.
The ramps are a big hit. That one was originally made by mario as a broodies cage but the quail ninjaed it.
All cages have roofs so the quail are not exposed to chicken poo
The cages make the birds happy but are not that eye pleasing due to the boxes being a bit weird.
I need to look at my pens and add some multi-levels inside each pen. I have a 1 ft x 1 ft x 1 ft black box (left over from some professional weight equipment that DH came home with years ago)in each pen and they get on top of them, hide behind them, etc. I also cut fresh branches every week from our trees and put them in the pens so they can climb on them, hide in them, eat the leaves, etc.
let me know if you find a local processor! i've been psyching myself up for processing chickens, but would like to at least like to learn with someone who's done it before first...
I know I absolutely cannot do it, I can't even psych myself up for it. The only way I will even be able to raise any type of meat bird is to remove myself from them. I will have to keep them in a pen way far away from the house. Only go out to feed, water and check everyone over for problems. It's sad, but I am too soft. I grew up raising a steer every year for food, eating wild pig and venison.....I still cannot bring myself to do it. Ugh.
I will ask around. We know a bunch of people who process larger animals, so they might know someone who will do chickens.
Sorry for the double post...but I need advice. The fuzzies on the Bay Area thread perked me up and so have the quail babies! Love them! But we returned home from vacation yesterday to receive bad news. My favorite little blue silkie hen passed away while we were gone. We don't know what from. My neighbor tells me she just found her, no marks, so could have been the heat although she had lots of shade and water in the yard. She was more like a dog than a chicken. Followed us everywhere and talked to us while we did yard work/BBQd/relaxed....... always dust bathing nearby. She will be missed.... my concern now is for my remaining silkie - her hatch mate. She is now all alone as she and her sister are separated from the 3 big girls due to bullying. She is about 2 years old now so I don't know what to do.... will she be okay on her own? Or should I try to find another Silkie to keep her company? Any thoughts, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
So sorry that you lost a girl! And of course it had to be a favorite!
We lost one to heat this past week, also. I don't have any experience with lone chickens but I would think that your remaining one would be happier with a friend.
Yes they are social. I have one pullet isolated while she recovers from being pecked. She seems fine by herself but I do hope to get her back with her friends soon.
Check with Chiqita--maybe get onto her list for a new Silkie.
I'm soft too I know how you feel. This will sound weird but I decided it was so much better for the bird to die swiftly at home from a broken neck then go to a processor that I can now help a lot with the process ( still rely a lot on mario) .
Especially quail where they settle in your hand quickly and do not notice you have snapped their neck.
It is IMO the equivalent of being able to die at home rather then in a hospital.
Not meaning to judge if you do it another way. It was just a way I could look at it and make different decisions.
Sorry for the double post...but I need advice. The fuzzies on the Bay Area thread perked me up and so have the quail babies! Love them! But we returned home from vacation yesterday to receive bad news. My favorite little blue silkie hen passed away while we were gone. We don't know what from. My neighbor tells me she just found her, no marks, so could have been the heat although she had lots of shade and water in the yard. She was more like a dog than a chicken. Followed us everywhere and talked to us while we did yard work/BBQd/relaxed....... always dust bathing nearby. She will be missed.... my concern now is for my remaining silkie - her hatch mate. She is now all alone as she and her sister are separated from the 3 big girls due to bullying. She is about 2 years old now so I don't know what to do.... will she be okay on her own? Or should I try to find another Silkie to keep her company? Any thoughts, would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I'm not sure where you're located. I'm in the foothills east of Sacramento, I'm sure I can find a spare silkie in my pens. I'm assuming you're looking for a girl and I probably have a couple of pet quality girls in my pen (non-recognized color, light skin color, etc.).
Example (skin color not as dark as I would like), can't see that too well though, LOL
My first experience with processing was last fall. Almost all the birds we processed were meaties but we did do some of my extra Langshan and SPPR roos. I had to choose which ones we kept and which ones took the long walk to the cone. It was hard to choose who would live and who would die but some of the boys made it way easier on me when they pecked me hard that morning. We have a group of year old roos that we will be processing in August. We kept too many boys because I couldn't make up my mind on which ones to keep. We have had to separate the roos and the hens because the hens were taking a severe beating from the boys. According to some old time Langshan breeders, their meat is supposedly excellent even when they are older birds.
