Well since my town has completely outlawed chickens and "farm animals" I have decided it was in my pet chickens best interest to find a new pet home. The change in law was sparked because of someone having roosters. But I have an idea that might just work for this year so I can still enjoy my poultry "kinda". Button quail(maybe even coturnix) in my opinion are more of regular birds than farm animals. "Birds" are specifically allowed in the new law. The pet store up the road to my house used to sell button quails with the finches. So my new plan is to buy an incubator and hatch some button quails. Then build a nice little indoor aviary for a few of them to live in and add a few cheap finches to fill up the cage. No one(not even the zoning officer) will notice the button quails once they see the finches. They won't know the difference! Now all I need to do is save up for a cheap incubator. Any ideas on an incubator brand? I know they sell LG still air incubators at Tractor Supply for $44. I could easily wire up a cheap fan to it to make it forced air. I tried building my own incubator a few times with no success. Once I have the incubator I will start looking for some button quail eggs to test out. I think it is cool that they only take 16-18 days to hatch. Wish me luck!
Coturnix quail would be better choice. They are so friendly and lay a lot of egg. However, if you don't want to butch the noisy male then might be a problem. They do taste really good at 7-10 weeks. My recommend build the pen that the back side 2-3" higher than the front and with egg catcher so the egg can roll out and you pick the eggs from there. The best wire size would be 1/2" x1/2" or 1/4" x 1/4". Otherwise, the rat, possum, or raccoon will kill the quail from outside the pen. If it does work out, you could always use the pen to raise rabbit in the future. Don't buy LG incubator! Hoverbator or Brinsea is better choice.
There is a right to farm by law that can help you keep your birds.Contact your state and register your land as a farm.This limits the ability of local governments to legislate what you can and can't raise.This is happening in towns in Ma. and our club has people that know all the by laws and ways to keep your birds.I could send you the name of the person that could help you out if you'd like? In N.H.,Tony.
Well it looks like I am going to be stuck with an LG because there is one on sale at my Tractor Supply and I am running on a limited budget. I wired a PC fan to an ac adapter so it will be force air and I will also do some of the other LG "tricks" mentioned in the Incubation sub-forum. I already have a hydrometer/thermometer and a laser temperature gun. I found someone who will ship a dozen eggs to me cheap. So the only things left to do is to bargain with my dear mother to see if she will even allow me to hatch the eggs,then get up to tractor supply and get the incubator, and of course purchase the eggs. I really want to document the progress of the eggs for my facebook friends since some of them have been asking about the process of hatching out of curiosity because of my parrots. I think it would be really neat to have a few button quail in my bird room. Well I will present the idea to my mom tomorrow and see what she has to say!
Laser thermometers will read different temperatures depending on how far they are away from their directed surface and on the quality of the device. Unless you have a seriously high quality one (Mine can't be trusted for incubation and it was about $100) it won't do you much good since a half degree matters and most guns will give variable temps by 1-3*. Also they only read surface temps and since there will be very little thermal mass in your bator the temp will begin to change the second you open the lid. If you try to shoot a temp through the glass you'll only get the temp of the of glass. I recommend using at least 2 mercury thermometers, 3 is even better (the ones that come with them are usually trash). Digitals can be found that are accurate enough but most are pretty cheap and don't do the job. Digital thermometers that can be calibrated are a different story though those are usually much better quality.