Quail

[Joyfillednomads]

Quail.
We actually wanted quail first. But as things evolve and happen, quail hadn't.
We got fertile hatching quail eggs as a gift. Shipped in the mail.
We were so over joked and excited. When I pulled the tiny carton from the box the little eggs were so cold. Of course it's winter. My heart sank.
So I wanted to fill up our little incubator to increase our chances of having quail hatch.
Determined and on a mission. We drove what was supposed to be an hour, all over the place and got sent to a cemetery in the middle of no where in a bad storm. With Terrible service, no GPS and no paper map... we took a screen shot of the map on the phone when we got service again... and turned off the volume on car GPS and watched how wrong it still was.
Anyway after being run off the road and starting to slide off into a Ditch and all that kinda ruckus... we made it to see these quail eggs.
Well I went ahead and bought two dozen instead of one and all the day old quail babies they had left. Which was ~40. Including so really tiny ones that I was warned might not make it.

So an order of 12 quail eggs, we were sent 4 extra. Plus the 2 dozen we bought. So 40 quail eggs in the incubator. Which lockdown begins in a day. And 40 quail in the brooder.

And since the eggs were a surprise we kicked all our eggs out of our good incubator into our Styrofoam incubator. And we didn't even have cages. We used our chick brooder set up. But quail at a week old want to jump and fly.
So out of scraps I made a quail cage that can also be used as a tractor, just inches off the ground. It has two sides but can be divided into four spaces.

But looking at the colors and types I would like to further separate the quail, so I need more.
The plan is to cook a few, give away a few, keep a few. And what I want them for truly are eggs.
They are so cute and impossible to just hold, like a baby chicken. They are so jumpy. Opening the brooder to check on them,one jumped out. Took forever to move things and finally catch it. Got it.
When I couldn't decide which colors, I bought them all.
The silver is really growing on me. And the lighter colors.

See what hatches. ..tomorrow is lockdown. Just a few more days. Exciting.

 

[nchls school]

Quail are an interesting and cute bunch to have. I've four-two pair of pieds that were raised by a bantam hen. I'm curious to see if they will brood and raise their own chicks. A few years ago I had one that raised three batches of ten chicks each time. She, also, had been raised by a bantam. I want to see if being normally raised will produce cortunix that will breed naturally. One hen has already tried to brood. The eggs had froze before she went broody so I stopped her attempt to nest; maybe in the spring.

GOOD LUCK with the eggs and chicks.

 

[Joyfillednomads]

Quail are an interesting and cute bunch to have. I've four-two pair of pieds that were raised by a bantam hen. I'm curious to see if they will brood and raise their own chicks. A few years ago I had one that raised three batches of ten chicks each time. She, also, had been raised by a bantam. I want to see if being normally raised will produce cortunix that will breed naturally. One hen has already tried to brood. The eggs had froze before she went broody so I stopped her attempt to nest; maybe in the spring.

GOOD LUCK with the eggs and chicks.

Thanks. Very cool your quail went broody!! Wow.

 

[nchls school]

Thanks. Very cool your quail went broody!! Wow.

Quail going broody is probably more common than you might think though most seem to just lay more and more eggs, dropping them hither and yon. I noticed this morning my second quail hen had dug out a nest in the hay bedding and had a single egg in it. I'll leave her go as the temperatures are staying above freezing right now.

 

[yakitori]

wow, those enclosures look great!

i have 7 adult quails right now, with 10 more in the bator. I decided I wanted celadon eggs and so far the ones my girls laid has been blue! Hoping to hatch more this coming spring and get an enclosure set up!