Captain Quark
Songster
I've had quail for a couple years now, mostly for eggs but I've processed and eaten a few. We couldn't get the normal organic farmer to grow out chickens for us this year so we ventured into doing it ourselves.
I was hopeful that it would be like having large quail and in many respects it's similar though chickens really are chicken! Not much brave curiosity in my chicken group - compared to quail who are constantly in my way when I try to do anything in the pen because they are so curious.
We had the "day olds" inside for two days. My guess is they were three or four days old when we got them as some were getting feathers already. After the growth of only two days we revised quickly and brooded them outside. Quail are so little I just was not prepared for how much space 34 chicken chicks would take up.
Luckily it was an early and hot start to the summer and there were only a couple nights where it dropped to 4 C overnight. They all did great!
I tried to introduce fermented organic feed right away, and much like quail chicks, they were not having that! It took about a week to transition them to fully fermented feed.
I'm surprised by how picky they are about what bugs they will or will not eat. It's true the Cornish x are lazy laying down to eat birds so I keep raising the feeder to force them to stand up. We have 32 female Cornish x and two male red ranger. The rangers also lay down to eat.
We started them in an outdoor coop from day 3 of having them and at 2.5 weeks opened up the coop to a fenced in run. After two days they got the idea of how to come and go from inside the coop to outside to pick at bugs and plants. They haven't shown any interest in veg or fruit scraps. Once they started putting themselves to bed in the coop at night (only took a few days) I opened up the fence to let them free range.
As these are my first outdoor birds at all I was afraid they would all run away and I would be searching out chickens all evening. Turns out that once again chickens are chicken and only a couple of them were brave enough to venture a few feet outside the open fence. I think the area is too open and exposed so will try a more sheltered side tomorrow.
It's been an easy and happy experience so far and we are excited to be growing more of our own food!
I was hopeful that it would be like having large quail and in many respects it's similar though chickens really are chicken! Not much brave curiosity in my chicken group - compared to quail who are constantly in my way when I try to do anything in the pen because they are so curious.
We had the "day olds" inside for two days. My guess is they were three or four days old when we got them as some were getting feathers already. After the growth of only two days we revised quickly and brooded them outside. Quail are so little I just was not prepared for how much space 34 chicken chicks would take up.
Luckily it was an early and hot start to the summer and there were only a couple nights where it dropped to 4 C overnight. They all did great!
I tried to introduce fermented organic feed right away, and much like quail chicks, they were not having that! It took about a week to transition them to fully fermented feed.
I'm surprised by how picky they are about what bugs they will or will not eat. It's true the Cornish x are lazy laying down to eat birds so I keep raising the feeder to force them to stand up. We have 32 female Cornish x and two male red ranger. The rangers also lay down to eat.
We started them in an outdoor coop from day 3 of having them and at 2.5 weeks opened up the coop to a fenced in run. After two days they got the idea of how to come and go from inside the coop to outside to pick at bugs and plants. They haven't shown any interest in veg or fruit scraps. Once they started putting themselves to bed in the coop at night (only took a few days) I opened up the fence to let them free range.
As these are my first outdoor birds at all I was afraid they would all run away and I would be searching out chickens all evening. Turns out that once again chickens are chicken and only a couple of them were brave enough to venture a few feet outside the open fence. I think the area is too open and exposed so will try a more sheltered side tomorrow.
It's been an easy and happy experience so far and we are excited to be growing more of our own food!
