- Jul 4, 2011
- 7
- 1
- 7
I have been raising chickens for years and love it. I always wanted to raise quail so I finally broke down and started doing alot of research, bought two different books on how to raise quail and read numerous articles. I thought this would be easy. I was very wrong. I bought 100 jumbo bobwhite eggs and put them in the incubator. Fast forward 23 or so days and just like the book said they started hatching. I had a home made brooder to put them in. I hatched 50 and lost 8 of the 50 (either weak birds or legs backwards) but I thought I was doing good with %50 hatch rate for first time. I kept the brooder on my screened in porch and came home one day to find 5 dead quail, and 2 live ones in the brooder and nothing else. Where did all the quail go? In the stomachs of 2 large (one over six feet) chicken snakes that were to fat to move when I caught them. First thing I did was order another 100 quail eggs. This time I hatched 30, I did the same exact thing as the first time just didnt have a very high hatch rate. Since the first snake episode I built the Fort Knox of quail brooder to put my quail in. Fast foward to 10 days ago my son decided to be born into this world two weeks early. We had a heat wave in the south with several days of 100 plus degree heat and I had a friend that was checking on my animals while I was taking care of wife and new born son, my first priority. He did not do a very good job and let the quail run out of water. 20 quail died. Today I was cleaning the coop and three got out and are roaming around the property I live on. So now I have(two) 5 week old quail that survived the snake attack and (seven) 2 week old quail that survived the drought and me letting them loose.
I started with 200 eggs.
For a positive spin my wife and son are doing great.
I started with 200 eggs.
For a positive spin my wife and son are doing great.
