My quail adventures

[Captain Quark]

How is the worm population? I love the idea, but I'm afraid the birds would eat all the wriggler workforce.

They are doing great! I just grabbed a breeding pile of worms today to put into the little pen that I had ignored for too long..didn't plan on using it and then got these new girls. I find the wigglers like to bunch up in the balls of newspaper and eggshell. I pulled out about two golf ball sized lumps of them today roughly 6 oz) to put in the little pen. That was about 1/4 of the actual breeding lump I dug up. There are a LOT of worms in there. Because I leave the lights on for 14 hrs the worms stay underground. If they come up its at night when the birds are sleeping /can't see.

Occasionally when I'm adding more paper or a bit of food scraps they will get eaten. The birds learn very quickly that my little hand spade means wigglers will be exposed. They get really excited when they see me coming with that.

When I first talked to the local worm breeders they all warned me it could be in vain, but the system is working out great. Only "failure" is that they don't actually eat as much vegetable waste as I hoped. Going to do the traditional Rubbermaid bin eventually just for our veg waste I think.

 

[Quail 66]

Congratulations . I'm green with envy . I wish I had more space.Talk away. Most people ramble all day about x factor and they can't even sing

 

[DustyDivas]

Only "failure" is that they don't actually eat as much vegetable waste as I hoped. Going to do the traditional Rubbermaid bin eventually just for our veg waste I think.

Sounds like you are doing great so far
I had a wormery for composting in my last house. During my research I discovered that, apparently, they will eat either veg scraps or poop, but not both. So your wigglers are probably happily filling up on quail poop.
When you start the new wormery for veg only, they will probably get through it pretty quickly

 

[LJHC]

I'm really very happy with how it all turned out! I was motivated by a post I read here about a deep litter system. My husband built a 10' x 4' pen for me. It's about 4' high to give them space when they fly up. It's raised off the floor by 1", bottom is plywood which is covered with tarp. Sides are 12" high. It's inside and I didn't want a mess everywhere. It's still ended up being messy but we've worked around that.

I layed cardboard on the bottom, then added in two pounds of red wiggler composting worms. Here is where I start to deviate from what others have done. I have an open compost system outside. I went and dug under the top layer and dug up all the soil there and hauled it inside to put on top of my red wigglers. I added a bunch of hand shredded papers, and dumped the soil on that. It had all sorts of bugs and other worms in there.I've seen spiders, fruit flies, beetles, grubs, massive earth worms and more.

For the first month (maybe even six weeks - I can't remember now), I let the worms work out the ecosystem. They went through about a pound of vegetable scraps a week or less, plus lots of paper. I had to water it frequently to get just the right level of moisture. My system is much drier than a regular vermicompost system. There is no where to drain excess water (compost tea) so I manage the moisture levels. The last bit of time before moving the quail in I started scooping up the quail poop and seed debris from the smaller pen they were in and putting it with the worms to see if the poop would kill the worms. It didn't, they were thriving, everything looked great!

I moved the quails in. We built a two level area to increase the square footage. On the raised platform I have a three sided box for their shower. I hang cedar cuttings in front of it to help hold the dust in, like a shower curtain. I shove more cedar cuttings it the soil near the corner they picked for their nest. The love hiding in it.

I quickly discovered that the way I fed the birds leaves enough waste food for the worms and they don't need much vegetable scraps at all. I put in maybe 4 oz of scraps every other week if I happen to think of it. They are so bad at breaking down the veg now that I want to build a proper vermicompost system separately just to compost my veg scraps.

I left the pen separated into two sections. One side has my original adults, the other houses the babies we hatched in November. The adults never had any bad smells. I scoop out dried up poop once a day at feeding time. Sometimes I bury it in there, sometimes I dump it outside in my outdoor compost. The babies, however, did manage to stink things up. I experimented with pine shavings (made the smell worse) and with orchard grass - the kind you feed to Guinea pigs and rabbits. The orchard grass is much better but still problematic. It holds poop in and gets trampled and starts to smell again.

For the babies I've now got the system working okay. I need to dig up their soil and replenish the scrap paper under the soil a bit more often. I scoop up their poop once a day and compost it outside. It takes me literally 3 minutes once a day to scoop both sides of the pen. I don't make it perfect, just whatever I can reach.

The babies have a jalapeño plant in there (during the six week set up I tried growing veggies on that side). They haven't killed it yet but it's starting to look less happy. I cut up some fallen branches to make a bit of a raised area for their shower, and it gives them more hiding spots down below. All seven baby girls picked the same nest to lay their eggs, and they love lining it with the orchard grass. I get two giant eggs from them daily. Not sure who is laying them. I'm guessing the whites but have no proof yet.

I get a lot of pleasure watching them dig up holes and finding a worm now and again. My son gets good microbes when he comes down and starts poking holes in the dirt and visiting with the more friendly quails. My eggs are probably a bit more dirt covered than most but I don't mind. It's a bit of happy summer for me each day when I'm in the basement, while snow is blowing outside.

Photo of all the pens. Excuse the mess. I didn't clean up before taking a photo.

These are great photos! Thanks for sharing.
I use cardboard boxes too and my birds seem to like it just fine. What was your largest quail egg? Most of mine are between .60 and .65 ounces.

 

[Captain Quark]

These are great photos! Thanks for sharing.
I use cardboard boxes too and my birds seem to like it just fine. What was your largest quail egg? Most of mine are between .60 and .65 ounces.

My scale doesn't go into two decimals for ounces. My regular eggs are usually 11 to 12 grams. I've had occasional ones at 13. The eggs that feel large from the new babies (and don't for nicely in the quail egg cartons due to size) are between 13 and 14 grams. I think they're on the higher end of normal but not jumbo. Physically they take up more space so I keep them aside for home use so they don't get squashed in the cartons we sell.

 

[Quailobsessed]

Wow, that looks like a lovely set-up!

 

[Captain Quark]

Well a little update. One of our golden home hatched girls that went broody earlier in the year has apparently gotten that from her mother. Mom (Mrs. Cucumber) has been sitting on a clutch of eggs for five days, very determined. Today as I was changing water and feed I took a look and it seems that two other girls really like this broody idea. One girl (not one of my lines - purchased to increase genetic diversity a while back) has decided to push her way in there as well. Cora, a sister to Mrs. Cucumber keeps popping in to see if they need help. She was also very attentive to the Golden girl when she tried going broody earlier this year.

Now that they are outside in a much larger run I'm hopeful that it might work out. Crossing fingers! Video of pen - see the moms working out who gets what eggs around the two minute mark.

 

[Chip76]

see the moms working out who gets what eggs around the two minute mark.

That is absolutely adorable! (And hilarious!!)