Last night, unfortunately because our 13 yr. old is failing Ag class, I met my first A&M quail! I new that the ag teacher hatched them and taught the kids about growth rates, feed ratios, butchering, etc but never had the opportunity to meet the teacher face to face. It has always been emails.
First impression, they are kinda noisy. Not necessarily in a bad way but when you have a stack of grow off cages and a stack of breeder cages...
A&M's are not the prettiest birds out there, but the eggs are really cool looking. (you already know what they look like from monarc's many, many pics)
But, to make up for the "lack of coloring", like a Cornish X, they do have some meat on them. He had butchered some last weekend with a class of volunteers and showed me the cleaned bird. At 225lbs, I may need 2 or 3 to sustain me but the size of the dressed bird is pretty impressive.
So now I have basically an unlimited source of eggs (he had 4 gal. ice cream pails full on the floor next to the 'bator), but I need to get my incubator operating properly. (btw: his $700 incubator is having problems with humidity too) I need to build my breeder cages because he will give me started birds if I so choose. Or I need to get another brooder made soon because he is at day 16 in the bator!
I guess my son's struggle (he just doesn't care, but that is a different story) is my blessing!! Now to just get him involved...hmmm. I guess I should let him "help" me build the cage (till he losses interest) and then play stupid (not that hard to do) about raising them and see what he can teach me. (I always have you guys to fall back to for answers
)
Oh, ya. Thanks again for showing and encouraging me to get another breed...
First impression, they are kinda noisy. Not necessarily in a bad way but when you have a stack of grow off cages and a stack of breeder cages...
A&M's are not the prettiest birds out there, but the eggs are really cool looking. (you already know what they look like from monarc's many, many pics)
But, to make up for the "lack of coloring", like a Cornish X, they do have some meat on them. He had butchered some last weekend with a class of volunteers and showed me the cleaned bird. At 225lbs, I may need 2 or 3 to sustain me but the size of the dressed bird is pretty impressive.
So now I have basically an unlimited source of eggs (he had 4 gal. ice cream pails full on the floor next to the 'bator), but I need to get my incubator operating properly. (btw: his $700 incubator is having problems with humidity too) I need to build my breeder cages because he will give me started birds if I so choose. Or I need to get another brooder made soon because he is at day 16 in the bator!
I guess my son's struggle (he just doesn't care, but that is a different story) is my blessing!! Now to just get him involved...hmmm. I guess I should let him "help" me build the cage (till he losses interest) and then play stupid (not that hard to do) about raising them and see what he can teach me. (I always have you guys to fall back to for answers
Oh, ya. Thanks again for showing and encouraging me to get another breed...
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