Illinois...

[ChicagoClucker]

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. @Faraday40 the chicks are precious. I do have to say, among all of the things I was grateful for this year, I was grateful for not having any chicks in the house for the holidays. SO grateful, for my broody bantams.

 

[Faraday40]

Chick update:
All are doing well. These little ones are so quiet, relaxed, & content. They are not needy & never peck at each other. Such a pleasure.

We have 4 black chicks. (One I think is a cuckoo orp) Oopps. I forgot & left one in the cage when I did pics.




We have 1 choc cuckoo orp (Godiva x Brick, so it will be a real looker.)


4 lavender orps (One was an assisted hatch & was over 2.5 days late! It's perfectly fine now.)


3 Silkie/EE(roo) x Wyandotte(hen) mixes.

Two have very clear chipmunk stripes, the other does not have the side stripes. (Could that be related to gender?)

All 3 are cute! One on left (below) has the biggest crest-like face.



One chick has 5 toes. (None have black skin)

 

[Faraday40]

The Ups & Downs of Quail:
These little guys are similar to chickens, but I'm still learning more each day.
I've hatched hundreds of chickens (literally) Between DD's projects & my embryology classes we hatched over 140 chicks in 2016 alone! However, this was our 1st attempt with quail. They are tiny, fast, & have no common sense. They are of course so adorable & make our younger chicks look like Godzilla. They are messy eating & pooping machines. They have a quiet peep that is higher pitched. They will make loud crying noises if they want attention. They really want attention....

So on a sad note, one thing I learned about was something called "failure to thrive." One can see that quail grow fast when we look at a newly hatched quail standing next to one that has been out for 24 hrs. What I noticed yesterday was that 2 quail still looked like day-olds, while the rest looked like 4 day olds. The small ones were eating & drinking - just not with the same vigor as the others. I gave them some alone time with wet food & water + electrolytes. One died last night. The other is seen below with 2 siblings. There is a chance that it is a smaller breed- like a button quail - but I fear that its chances are not high.

Can you believe this quail was about as big as a quarter 4 days ago?



Like baby chickens, quail will pile up & sleep in all kinds of crazy positions.

 

[cavemanrich]

I considered keeping quail some time ago. Gave up the Idea when I found out that they do need to be caged when grown, or they will fly away.

By "caged" it also can be an enclosed run with netting on top.

 

[Faraday40]

QUAIL:
Since it was for a sci project, we just bought local eggs. I simply asked for the best breed for eggs & she said Jumbo Corturnix. She warned us that spring is a better time to hatch & that fertility would be very low. (She predicted only about 30% would hatch.) However DD's project must be completed by January, so we went ahead. She only charged us for eating eggs.

We bought 30 eggs from the breeder. The hatch went like this:
10 were left alone as a control, 5 hatched, (4 were clear, 1 developed but died)
10 were washed, put in the fridge & driven around to be the "farmer market eggs", 6 hatched (only 1 clear, 3 developed but died just before hatching)
plus 6 that were thrown in but not part of the experiment. 5 hatched (1 clear)
* 4 eggs were cracked open to check for bull's eyes before setting any eggs. They looked mostly fertile, 1 was a ?, & all were made into a mini omelet. LOL

Now comes the fun part of analyzing the data. 62% of the incubated eggs hatched. WOW! So much better than the breeder expected.
The control was 50% & the farmer market eggs were 60%. Yet is it fair to include eggs that were clear?
If we don't count the clears, the control got 5/6 or 83% and the farmer market eggs got 6/9 or 67%. That makes more sense.

The only other variable I can think of is the position of the eggs in the incubator. Because they were grouped, the positions in the turner were not changed. The control group was along one side & the farmer market group was in the center of the incubator. The incubator is automated, so the lid was rarely lifted.

Does anyone have other thoughts or ideas to add?

We'll be giving most of the quail (& all the the chicks) away. DD wants to train a few quail, so I'm modifying my mom's old parakeet cage in case we decide to keep maybe 3 as house pets until spring. (about 18x36") The alternative is to simply grow all of them out & have quail for dinner in 6 wks. The kids are protesting to that idea.

Anyway, on paper raising quail looks so easy. They're quiet, take up little space, mature quickly, & can be used for both meat & eggs. So, I suppose allowing the kids to keep a few will teach us if quail are a bird for us. (After reading about turkeys, guineas, geese, & ducks, none came even close to be considered.)



CHICKENS:
Because we didn't know if any quail would hatch, we did the same experiment using chicken eggs.
Control: 6/6 hatched = 100%
Farmer Market: 5/6 hatched = 83% (One was a blood ring by day 7.)
+ plus 2 eggs that were thrown in at last min & not part of the experiment.

As far as the 3rd group = eggs from the grocery store. We were unable to find any fertile chicken eggs from the stores (tried 6 diff brands of free range or pasture-raised eggs & ate a lot of omelets.) Gave up & didn't bother trying to incubate infertile eggs. All 3 brands of quail eggs looked fertile, but there was no way to calculate the packing date. The quail eggs we purchased & incubated may have been well over a week old.

 

[cavemanrich]

QUAIL:




Now comes the fun part of analyzing the data. 62% of the incubated eggs hatched. WOW! So much better than the breeder expected.
The control was 50% & the farmer market eggs were 60%. Yet is it fair to include eggs that were clear?
If we don't count the clears, the control got 5/6 or 83% and the farmer market eggs got 6/9 or 67%. That makes more sense.


You are doing the project using the SCIENTIFIC method. I think the clear eggs should be included because, You are trying to see If store purchased eggs will hatch and at what rate. Getting them from a breeder equals store since they were sold as eating eggs. ALL eggs should be included in your calculations, other wise, you are trying to influence your outcome.

The alternative is to simply grow all of them out & have quail for dinner in 6 wks.

The kids are protesting to that idea. I am with your kids IDEA.

You can just have DH build a Quail Tractor for you and move it around your yard during daytime. At night slip them into cage wherever you would keep them. Tractor can be constructed light duty just enough to keep quail from flying away. I used a screen tent before to house my pigeons that I knew would escape. During the day, I just placed them inside. I picked it up used for a few dollars.

This is what I used. No floor, the grass inside provided Ideal environment. I also placed a few tree branches inside to give birds place to sit. It looked really cool.

 

[Faraday40]

There are a lot of variables. Although the exp group was washed, rocked, & refrigerated, they had the higher hatch rate.

???? That group just happened to get more fertile eggs than the control group, and our sample is too small to compensate for random chance. (The unpredictable fertility rate could not have been controlled due to the season. I think a spring hatch would have more reliable results.) Also, I think the woman collecting eggs gave us only the best & freshest ones. She knew we were planning to hatch them, so she wanted to help. I'm sure she didn't just grab any old eggs from the fridge. The placement in the incubator could have been a factor as to why the farmer market eggs did better. I'd really hate for the students to think that washing, shaking, & refrigerating eggs will increase the hatch rate. LOL

PS- DD thinks we should start another trial.

(Definitely not for sci fair, but I would consider it if she wanted to continue this for 4H in spring.)

I like the idea of using a tent for a spring/summer aviary. Perhaps I'll keep an eye out at garage sales. (Not like DH will ever sleep in one. LOL)
I'm also on the look out for one of those small chicken coop/run set ups. Several people around me have found them free on the curbs. They make an excellent nursery for broody hen & chicks, hospital ward for injured birds, intro coop for new birds past quarantine, and even a rabbit hutch. I haven't been lucky yet.

 

[cavemanrich]

The screen house lasted for a couple of seasons. Got it already used. The constant UV on the nylon took its toll. When the screen started tearing easily, then it went to its final resting place.
I know you are familiar with Craigs list. Also consider Freecycle. You have to register to post , but you may post things that you would like to get also. Never know when someone comes across your post and light bulb shines on... " Hey, mom.... does aunt Sally still have that small chicken coop ??? here is someone looking for one."
I am registered with Elmhurst Freecycle. When I have good things that I don't feel should be thrown away, I post them there and on Craigs.

 

[Justjered]

Hello fellow Illinois peeps...

We're transplants but Galesburg, IL is home for now.

Speaking of... we started a FB page http://www.facebook.com/groups/GalesburgBackYardChickens/ if anyone is interested to join it.

We got our first chickens in June and went from a re-purposed pallets turned into a coop... to where we are today with a fully enclosed run and 3 story coop.

Currently have 5 buff Silkies that are all laying females and 3 blue Silkies that arent old enough to sex yet. (hoping for 2 hens and 1 roo).


I'm currently looking for some hatching eggs of various Silkies to expand our flocks colors.

Considering getting a pair of Serama's but not sure yet.

 

[chickendreams24]

Hello fellow Illinois peeps... We're transplants but Galesburg, IL is home for now. Speaking of... we started a FB page http://www.facebook.com/groups/GalesburgBackYardChickens/ if anyone is interested to join it. We got our first chickens in June and went from a re-purposed pallets turned into a coop... to where we are today with a fully enclosed run and 3 story coop. Currently have 5 buff Silkies that are all laying females and 3 blue Silkies that arent old enough to sex yet. (hoping for 2 hens and 1 roo). I'm currently looking for some hatching eggs of various Silkies to expand our flocks colors. Considering getting a pair of Serama's but not sure yet.

Hi and welcome! I spend a lot of time here with my Illinois friends but I am actually from southern Wisconsin Janesville area. We will have silkie hatching eggs available in spring our girls are not currently laying. They will be from a mixed silkie flock, though. We have a gray hen, a white hen, a partridge cockeral, a paint(99% sure it's a pullet), a partridge pullet, and a blue and a buff(the last two are still too young to sex but I'm hoping for pullets) our silkie flock unfortunately was decimated by predators this year well actually a good portion of our whole flock was so we have been trying to rebuild from the ground up. Oops forgot we also have two white crossed with gray pullets(99% sure but no eggs yet) which are very cool colored they are white with a slight gray tint and their wing tips are gray. So they look like they're white fading to gray. If both continue looking like pullets one will likely be rehomed.