help with possible first quail pen please (: (coturnix)

[ohiogoatgirl]

i finally did the seperation thing. Mr Tux crowed first crow i have heard in person! he seems gentle with his girls because the rest of their heads are fine, no missin feathers. none of the others crowed so guess that means i have 4 hens and 1 roo. makes me wonder what the two that escaped were, just the odds that i'd have two escape and end up with one roo and the rest girls and not one girl and the rest roos! especially considering they were younger when i picked them up and was expecting pharohs.

no eggs this morning, i felt their butts as i popped em back in the hutch and the hens i can feel their bones (the long pelvis part..?) has become more defined on them and wider. with replacement birds when i start hatchin some out i will have to check for that to see, just a bit of an experiment.

thinkin on practice hatching out a few from my groups eggs. test out their fertility and hatch rate and test out my bator (once i finish gettin the parts and makin it). then when i have a bit spending money i want to get some hatchin eggs from vails quail or JMF and keep most of the hens back for layers and a couple roos. one roo to go on some of those hens for fertile eggs, and the other roo to go on this group of hens to see what those turn out like.

 

[ohiogoatgirl]

well i am gettin two eggs a day now. i was reading how each hen has a specific way she will lay her eggs and that hens eggs will all look identical her whole life. so far i am not seeing it! haha. but i have been gettin two eggs per day at differing times so i am goin to try and start writin down when i get an egg and what it looks like. to figure out if i can tell such-and-such eggs always lay between such-and-such times and these other such-and-such eggs always between this and that times.
someone suggested on a group that i seperate out the hens to see if its really just two laying or them all layin on wonky schedule.. but i only have the hutch for them right now. so maybe once i figure out what time-ish i am gettin eggs i can seperate one hen, if the egg is with that hen its her and if its in the haybox then its not her and try a different hen the next day at that time.

now i need to figure out a good way to mark them. the roo i can tell from his white tux pattern. the rest i cant really tell except one hen has a small strip of white tux pattern and one of the solid hens is a bit smaller than the others. hmm...