January 1, 2011 Quail Hatch Along

Just read your last memo there JJMR and started chuckling.
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I am in trouble then, cause I have just been informed that I have a hatch starting next week. Cool, I was going to hatch a few anyway. But its going to be an unplanned large hatch in the winter. I have a feeling I am going to fill my bator, again.

So I will be finding out what stinky in the house means. And I had best get a few more tubs.

I don't have a business plan and I don't want to write one up again, Ever.
My girls don't have to pay their way, as long as they don't plan on staying here, forever, and they won't. I just expect hatching eggs when I want them.
But they do have to keep their numbers under control and not get out of hand. Because I just counted hens out there and I have more than I thought, yet not enough. They have been hiding out on me. Sneaky little things.

Let me warn you, don't just count your girls in each pen and leave it at that. NO, NO. Count them by colors in all the pens, the little fluffys take turns laying and leave you thinking you are feeding less than they are. Un huh, they know that sooner or later you are going to crunch numbers, and have learned to play the game well. Bird brain, my wallet, they are smart little thing's, but ever so cute.

I am really liking having my hatch in the living room.
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So I can watch them eat me out of house and home.
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But they are so cute.
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Well in a few weeks they start their ugly stage and I won't like them so much.
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Hello everyone, Madcap here. AT LAST! The holidays are over and life can return to 'normal' [read that 'mearly hectic']
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Got home Jan 2 from trip to the east coast to find my sweet little button Sofia sitting on 6 eggs, w/ a 7th laying cold in the cage. She was up running around in the cage Monday, so I took them out - but don't know if they had 'started'....candled clear. She has been on egg laying strike since then! The Coturnix have been laying 3 or 4 a day, but my 'bird helper' had been putting them in the fridge w/ the hen eggs.
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LSS: I now have 7 button eggs and 18 Coturnix eggs cooking and will add eggs every 5 days. Crossed fingers
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for the refrigerated ones!
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Back to catching up to a 2 week backlog on my computer!
 
Just an update on my babies. Now 10 days old and getting crowded in their tub. I had to lover their temp as they were to hot and crowding away from the light. They are now comfortable at 79*. I don't know but think they need the lower temp because of the ambient outside temps and because they are just bigger than previous hatches. I had best get more tubs before summer hatches.

They are going through almost 6 cups of food a day. And yes, I tested them out and tried unground feed when they were 3 or 4 days old. They ate but not as much as they do with the slightly ground feed. Did more wandering around than eating. So grind their feed to grow them big, I am still grinding but just a little smaller. This bag of Purina startena, seems to have a larger grind than normal and has large long pieces that didn't get ground well.

I will have to switch half over to another tub shortly so 16 in each tub, probably for another week, before I put them in the outside brooder. Depends on them, once they get down to 71* for a few days then they can go outside, if its not going to freeze the first few nights at that time. I can keep them at 68-71* in the outside brooder with no problem, though.

Previous hatches were in the bathroom and I couldn't see them from the sides ( kept them in the bathtub). In the livingroom, I can sit and watch them closely. I like that. At about 6 days old they started showing their spotted breasts, starting on the sides and moving inward. I had hoped that I could tell M/F when their tails developed but they seemed to develop all at the same time. Started feathering out at the same time, also. So not a clue as to M/F there. Next hatch of J Browns, I will have to pay more attention to the development of the spots, there has to be a difference there. Actually there is, just not sure which is which, I don't think I caught it in time. I need to pick them up and play with them more. That is going to be so hard to do when they are at their ugly stage.
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I still have 1 that is smaller. The egg from the young pen that hatched. So it is better to wait until the hens are at least 10 and preferably 12 weeks for the Yolks to get larger so the chicks can grow out to their full potential. But its so hard to wait.
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And they still look like long legged Tootsi Pops covered in feathers with little heads sticking out. The fluff is gone.

At 10 days old, they don't look like babies anymore. But they are.
 
I put the 2 week olds in their outside brooder. They cried and cried, until they heard their mommys and daddys calling to them. Then they quieted right down and I haven't heard a peep from them since. They are loving their spacious housing. Spacious for a few weeks when they will move to the grow out pen. This is the largest hatch yet. So the staggered line works.

With this batch needing the grow out pen in 2 weeks, my Whites need to go to their breeder pens. Which are taken up by 4 pens of Jumbo Brown breeders for the CO-OP eggs. SO I am putting all the Jumbo Browns into the new Colony pen(s). This Jan Hatch will join them when they are older. All CO-OP eggs will come from this colony pen. Ijust don;t have room for any other way and still be able to breed them the way I want to. These Jumbo Browns have been bred to breed the Manchurian Gold out of them. My line will include the M Gold as well as the Whites, just as they were previously bred.
 
Hey Buttercup,
Can you describe your "outside brooder" in a little detail? I would like to get some quail out side one day... thanks, Bill
 
Pic of brooder is up in the sticky for pens. Page 19. Along with 1 of my breeder cage setups.

Its 2'x4'. Don't make the mistake I made. I used the 1/4" screen on the bottom and its not good when they get a little older. Really hard to clean. Someone else here made his with the 1/2 " hardware cloth and just lays the 1/4" over the top for the first few weeks, that would be better. (I forgot to remind DH, he knew I bought the 1/4" for it, but didn't know how I was going to use it.).
We are going to change mine around when the weather warms enough and my grow out colony pens are done.

I still am looking for different lights, if I could have found the ones that fit on the sides I would make it shorter. But need the height to adjust the lights. I line the poo tray with the plastic Feed bags cut down and just empty them and scrape/hose them off and put them back.

In freezing weather up north may want to use paper liners and just toss them.

I double light in case 1 goes out at night. Daytime I lift top to adjust heat and usually only 1 light is on. The front doors will be changed out completly for the summer here (framed out 1/2" hardwarecloth, with wood slide down to cover). Actually he may need to get going on making them. (Sometimes we have 90* weather in Feb). I am home most of the time so I check on them often. I guess if I was working I would have to set the lights up on a thermostate or something.

Check out the pen sticky. Lots of good ideas there. Oh and if I had had a choice, I would not have painted it at all on the inside. But sometimes he is faster than I am.

I don't have pics of my grow out pen, but there are plenty in that sticky.
 
Well here are a couple of girls at 6 weeks old. To bad I can't take better pics. But you get the idea. Nice size, huh.
This one is average at 13.3oz
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I just really like this lady.
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If you stand on your head, you can see her nice little bib.
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I purposely looked for the smallest one for you to google.
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Remember 2 different browns, breed separate then crossed.
I'll put the pic that I have back in the 1st post, But I don't have some of the oldest pics anymore. But I do have the pics of the eggs numbered so you remember the sequence.
I will weigh again at 7 weeks and this time I will also weigh at 8 for you.

Nope, I can't do that I erased the pictures. But I set from pen 1 3 and 5 = P1, P2 and F1's. So its not just a matter of selecting the right breeders.
 
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