Rooapalooza
bird wrangler
A quail escaped while I was cleaning the cage. This has happened before, actually with like 10 of them, so I thought, no big deal. Usually they run and hide under things and are easy to catch. In this particular instance, though, the quail took off in flight, all at once at least 30 ft horizontally and at least 6 ft off the ground. It was impressive, but unfortunately it was also almost directly into the jaws of my neighbor's dog. That dog is the sweetest, so almost immediately brought the quail back to the fence for me. Unfortunately, her owner came driving down the road just as I was trying to get her to drop it, and suddenly she refused to release it. I think she was pretty desperate to bring it to her master, what a sweet pup. Anyway by the time I was able to get it out of her jaws through the cattle fence, the quail was dead.
That dog is pretty clearly a well-trained hunter; she's caught my wayward chickens before, and they've all come out of the experience relatively unharmed, so long as I'm there to retrieve them. There wasn't any visible damage on this quail, but for sure it was dead. I'm a vegetarian but I can't stand to let things go to waste, so I decided to learn how to process quail using this bird as a sample.
It went pretty well. I used kitchen scissors to snip off the head, dipped it in hot water which made the feathers easy to rub off, then snipped off the wings, feet, and butt. Then I cut around the spine and pulled out the innards. It was surprisingly easy; if this wasn't my first time it probably would have taken less than 5 minutes. I did learn that the innards stink worse than the raw meat though. After she was baked with lemon, thyme, and salt, I thought she was pretty tasty. I don't like the taste of meat anymore though, so my dog got to eat most of her.
Anyway I had a question about this whole process. I never cook with any meat so this is completely new to me. Shouldn't I have been able to see some eggs in development inside of her when I cut her open? I didn't see anything in there. Also the meat was a little bit bloody and bruised in a couple spots, would that have happened from the dog's jaw pressure or is that normal? Is it likely that she died of heart attack? I thought maybe she was in shock so I gave her like thirty minutes and she seemed dead. The eggs thing is really bothering me though; I've seen pictures of yolks and partially formed eggs from chicken processing and I expected to see something similar here.
That dog is pretty clearly a well-trained hunter; she's caught my wayward chickens before, and they've all come out of the experience relatively unharmed, so long as I'm there to retrieve them. There wasn't any visible damage on this quail, but for sure it was dead. I'm a vegetarian but I can't stand to let things go to waste, so I decided to learn how to process quail using this bird as a sample.
It went pretty well. I used kitchen scissors to snip off the head, dipped it in hot water which made the feathers easy to rub off, then snipped off the wings, feet, and butt. Then I cut around the spine and pulled out the innards. It was surprisingly easy; if this wasn't my first time it probably would have taken less than 5 minutes. I did learn that the innards stink worse than the raw meat though. After she was baked with lemon, thyme, and salt, I thought she was pretty tasty. I don't like the taste of meat anymore though, so my dog got to eat most of her.
Anyway I had a question about this whole process. I never cook with any meat so this is completely new to me. Shouldn't I have been able to see some eggs in development inside of her when I cut her open? I didn't see anything in there. Also the meat was a little bit bloody and bruised in a couple spots, would that have happened from the dog's jaw pressure or is that normal? Is it likely that she died of heart attack? I thought maybe she was in shock so I gave her like thirty minutes and she seemed dead. The eggs thing is really bothering me though; I've seen pictures of yolks and partially formed eggs from chicken processing and I expected to see something similar here.
on your attitude.
