Ok, bit of back story: My quail live on our 900 sq ft porch. We've had the quail about a month(ish) and they've just begun laying. During the pleasant weather, we practically live on our porch. Now for the weirdness. My A&Ms lay everyday between 12:30 and 2pm. I recently (about a week ago) began giving them a sand box with fresh sand daily. They LOVE this. During this sand fill-up I began talking to them and giving each one attention (except for the bad roo, he wants nothing to do with me). I noticed that if I skipped the new sand/attention routine, the A&Ms don't lay until it seems they just cannot help it--like 5-6pm. I tried out just plunking sand into the boxes and walking away, skipping the attention. No eggs til late in the evening. Went back to sand AND attention, eggs appear between 12:30-2pm. These last 3 days, I've gone outside at 12ish, looked into the cage (no eggs), talked to the birds, walked to pick up the sand to refil the sandbox, return to the cage to see eggs. This is literally less than a 3 minute time span. They even did this "party trick" for our guests at our Memorial Day cook out. Everyone was quite amused, especially since when I talked to them I made sure to ask them nicely for eggs. The kids were thrilled when they complied!
My question is this: Is this conditioning? Am I setting myself up for problems in the future if I don't continue the "babying" of the birds?
