Pink Quail?

[katagra]

Right or wrong, I supplement the diet of my birds with all kinds of leftovers, a variety of vegetables and meats,
everything made small enough for them to swallow easy. They really love boiled eggs. =)~
I've got about 100 cots, 18 painted buttons, 12 bantams, 2 chickens & 3 guineas, and they eat about 4 pounds of feed a day,
plus whatever they scratch up and scraps I throw out. Just my two cents.

 

[PinkBee]

Right or wrong, I supplement the diet of my birds with all kinds of leftovers, a variety of vegetables and meats,
everything made small enough for them to swallow easy. They really love boiled eggs. =)~

Nice! My family doesn't actually leave a lot of table scraps, but I like the idea of scraping all that is left together and letting something enjoy it rather than tossing it away. And, boiled eggs...

(Can egg shells ground up be used instead of oyster shell for calcium?)

How about fresh fruit? Would I need to be careful on the amounts of something like this? I have a mango tree that produces more than I or my neighbors, or friends, or vulnerable passersby can eat. So, needless to say, I could easily bury the poor birds in mangoes. Would one a day be too much? (Assuming I control my urge to give them every dropped, buggy fruit. Would they like the bugs in the buggy ones?!?)

 

[katagra]

Anytime I have a hatch, I save the egg shells and mash them up, mix them into the feed, seems to work pretty well.
I use chicken egg shells from breakfast too. I've never used oyster shell, but I'm a cheapskate. lol
None of my birds seem to like fruit very much, don't know why. Some times they give up trying to eat veggies if
it's too big too much work to swallow. Fruit might pose a similar problem. Mango tree huh? I love mangoes.
Did you plant a pit or buy a tree? How warm is it where you live? My birds eat just about any kind of bug they find,
even isopods. =)

 

[PinkBee]

Good to know about eggshells. I'd like to not have to buy everything if I can manage, so I think I'll do that, too.

Food size...chopping is good. Okay.

Will do!

My mangoes are fiberless and, when ripe, pretty soft. More like a peach than anything firmer. If they like them, if I cut them open, they shouldn't have a problem eating them. (We bought the house with an established mango tree. It's wonderful! And, I'm down in a planting zone 10b or 11. I've read both. Most tropicals survive pretty well here while many northern, better known plants, die.)

My brain temporarily shut off and I googled isopods. Yick! Picture after picture of "giant isopods" came up!

Now, I'm traumatized.

 

[jbobs]

I would think one would want to be conservative with the mangoes, it might give them diarrhea if they get too much LOL

 

[katagra]

I'm in zone 8, no mangoes for me. lol Sounds like a cherry mango tree. Cherry mangoes are the best. IMO.
Eggshells are pretty good when crushed. When my birds first started laying, I noticed some had fragile shells,
did a little reading and came up with that solution. Some of the first eggs laid were leathery, no shell at all,
but I never see any of those anymore. Yeah, wood lice, sow bugs, pill bugs; isopods. I like the little guys. =)~

 

[PinkBee]

I'm in zone 8, no mangoes for me. lol Sounds like a cherry mango tree. Cherry mangoes are the best. IMO.
Eggshells are pretty good when crushed. When my birds first started laying, I noticed some had fragile shells,
did a little reading and came up with that solution. Some of the first eggs laid were leathery, no shell at all,
but I never see any of those anymore. Yeah, wood lice, sow bugs, pill bugs; isopods. I like the little guys. =)~

I've never heard of "cherry mango," I'll have to look that up. And, they definitely are the best.

As for eggshells, crushed isn't pulverized, I'm going to guess? Or, are they mostly pulverized? Somewhere on here someone said to bake them a little while then whirl in the blender. The baking changes the taste (to disguise them??)

I would think one would want to be conservative with the mangoes, it might give them diarrhea if they get too much LOL

*sigh* Yeah, I figured. I need new neighbors and friends. LOL

-----

On a different note, I went to visit my friends who have quail and they have 10 1-week old A&Ms in a brooder atm. So so so cute! They are being held regularly and seem very hand accepting. They also had between them about 11 grown quail, wild colored (I think it's called). Only two of which were hand raised, so the rest are rather skittish. So now, I'm thinking I want to incubate some rather than purchase matured ones. And I'm also thinking I like the looks of the A&Ms or tuxedo types (or maybe it was just the yellow fuzzy babies...) Such decisions.

Btw, will the black spots on the chicks' heads go away or will they end having bigger, darker spots when they get older?

 

[katagra]

Hmm, I used to crush them by hand and whirl them in the blender, but powdered or small bits didn't seem to matter when it was mixed in feed.
I put them in a small butter bowl, use another butter bowl on top, then push down by hand, and sometimes with a jar for extra power.
The other day, I just laid the shells on the table and rolled the jar over them. That worked pretty well too. The blender made such a mess and was
a lot of work to clean, so that's why I started looking at alternatives. My birds don't mind the taste of raw shell. =)
Eggs or adult birds are good to buy. If you're wanting certain colors/patterns, it helps to have the adults yourself, so you can incubate your own eggs. IMO.
As far as I can tell about the spots, they're permanent. They'll be about the same size relative to the bird throughout life. I've had some get a bit of
dirt on the heads they couldn't clean off before, so it's not always as it appears. lol