Journey into quail

Celeste5 said:

That’s great! We have some of our own Coturnix quail and they’re such prolific layers. They’re really amazing birds for how small they are. A while ago we had around seven ducks. Since we were getting so many duck eggs we decided to sell them and found that a lot of the people we sold them to were allergic to chicken eggs but not duck eggs. Have you tried duck eggs?

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I'm not allergic to any eggs but if you give me a choice I will pick duck eggs every time. They're so much richer that any others.

@Celeste5 I have not tried duck eggs as the duck, geese, and turkey feathers themselves along with the chicken feathers send me to the hospital. That is why we started with me touching a feather of the quail first. But if I was not allergic I totally would get duck eggs from my neighbor who has several ducks.

@Alaska Satin I have plenty of water bottles left over from when I used them for the rabbits before I went to the automatic watering system. I will have to see if I can get them switched over. Though I am planning on getting the watering cups for them soon so I can add those to the already established system.

My girls gave me 9 eggs yesterday. I so cannot wait till all my hens are laying. It will be an awesome thing. This is because if I get overwhelmed with eggs I know that I can share the extras with our church for the community outreach program. I already have some people who are very happy to take my extra roosters to make quail pot pie with. Well the extra that don't fit into my own freezer that is lol.

A picture of some of the new babies. They hatched on the 12th.

Sagebrush said:

@Celeste5 I have not tried duck eggs as the duck, geese, and turkey feathers themselves along with the chicken feathers send me to the hospital. That is why we started with me touching a feather of the quail first. But if I was not allergic I totally would get duck eggs from my neighbor who has several ducks.

@Alaska Satin I have plenty of water bottles left over from when I used them for the rabbits before I went to the automatic watering system. I will have to see if I can get them switched over. Though I am planning on getting the watering cups for them soon so I can add those to the already established system.

My girls gave me 9 eggs yesterday. I so cannot wait till all my hens are laying. It will be an awesome thing. This is because if I get overwhelmed with eggs I know that I can share the extras with our church for the community outreach program. I already have some people who are very happy to take my extra roosters to make quail pot pie with. Well the extra that don't fit into my own freezer that is lol.

A picture of some of the new babies. They hatched on the 12th.

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Oh, I understand. I hadn’t even considered the chickens and ducks themselves being a problem. Also your babies are SO cute!

TamiPac said:

I'm not allergic to any eggs but if you give me a choice I will pick duck eggs every time. They're so much richer that any others.

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I’ve always found the yolk of the duck eggs very rich but I’ve always thought the white was kind of rubbery. The richest egg I think I’ve had is probably a Turkey egg. I just wish I got more of them from my hens. Sadly, they don’t lay very often.

Celeste5 said:

I’ve always found the yolk of the duck eggs very rich but I’ve always thought the white was kind of rubbery. The richest egg I think I’ve had is probably a Turkey egg. I just wish I got more of them from my hens. Sadly, they don’t lay very often.

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I really liked the turkey egg as well but I didn't like that I almost needed a man tool to get them open!

Much to my dismay, duck eggs are the one food on this planet im allergic to. So my muscovies have become meat producers. I love them and have to justify keeping them around! I have five young drakes to process next month that my breeding trio raised. I'm a little nervous, have heard mixed reviews on thr process. And rabbits and quail are so easy I'm spoiled!

Rabbit Tree Farm said:

Much to my dismay, duck eggs are the one food on this planet im allergic to. So my muscovies have become meat producers. I love them and have to justify keeping them around! I have five young drakes to process next month that my breeding trio raised. I'm a little nervous, have heard mixed reviews on thr process. And rabbits and quail are so easy I'm spoiled!

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I'm honestly planning that if I get muscovies that I'll just pull the breasts and give the rest to my cats. I mean... it won't go to waste and I don't have to deal with plucking or skinning the rest of the bird.

kusanar314 said:

I'm honestly planning that if I get muscovies that I'll just pull the breasts and give the rest to my cats. I mean... it won't go to waste and I don't have to deal with plucking or skinning the rest of the bird.

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Im honestly thinking the same for my dog. Im going to try one or two whole to decide if it's worth it. Im thinking of pulling breasts and leg quarters and of course the liver/gizzard/heart. I feel like thats the majority of edible on a duck shaped carcass!

Honestly when you have chickens, cats and or dogs...nothing is ever wasted!

TamiPac said:

I really liked the turkey egg as well but I didn't like that I almost needed a man tool to get them open!

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true

I have finally identified the roos in the flock we purchased. The white one has an injured leg but is healing well along with one of the hens. No clue what happened to them. I'm assuming it was injuries during open trailer transport from the previous owner but I don't know that for a fact. They didn't mention any injuries. We swapped them directly from their trailer to mine. I can't imagine how scared they were driving around with the wind and sand blowing all over. They came limping is all I know. In our enclosed trailer they were talking a little and eating etc. when we stopped and checked on them. Seemed pretty comfortable. I've just watched and waited while they all settled in and made sure they didn't get worse. Didn't want to stress them more. Also why I waited to sex them till now. Give them time to settle in a little. We got 3 eggs yesterday out of the 13 hens. Hopefully the lights will help now. Slowly bumping the lighting time up as time is going on.
The chicks we got a few weeks ago have officially been evicted from the house. Couldn't stand the smell anymore. They have their feathers for the most part now and I'm slowly reducing the heat lamp time. So far so good with them. I need to process the two extra roos that came in the top cage with the flock so I can transfer the chicks to that pen soon.
I've changed the bedding in the cages to shavings with a little straw in their hides. They seem far more comfortable than sand alone. They were quite excited about a pan of sand instead. I think the sand as bedding was just keeping them too cold.
Looking forward to seeing the chicks grow and start laying. I'm hoping they are a bit meatier than the flock we bought. If they are we'll keep the older flock for a while for eggs and use the eggs from the chicks to incubate. That's the plan for now anyways.

Well it has definitely been a hard week and a half for sure. I got the Flemish to their new home, where they are doing awesome and adjusting well, and have broken down cages to rebuild some more appropriate for my quail. I moved the 3 breeding Dutch into a breeding colony that is 8'x3'x30". They are doing okay but the buck is well being a buck and the girls are letting him know that they do not appreciate the attention. I will be making sand boxes that will attach to the sides of the cages once I have my S/O available to do the cutting of the sheet wood to the sizes I would like. Last two pictures are of the babies who will be 3 weeks old tomorrow that got moved out of the house today. One last cage will be built and placed on top of the baby cage as a secondary brooder cage that I can put a heat lamp on top of.

Sagebrush said:

Well it has definitely been a hard week and a half for sure. I got the Flemish to their new home, where they are doing awesome and adjusting well, and have broken down cages to rebuild some more appropriate for my quail. I moved the 3 breeding Dutch into a breeding colony that is 8'x3'x30". They are doing okay but the buck is well being a buck and the girls are letting him know that they do not appreciate the attention. I will be making sand boxes that will attach to the sides of the cages once I have my S/O available to do the cutting of the sheet wood to the sizes I would like. Last two pictures are of the babies who will be 3 weeks old tomorrow that got moved out of the house today. One last cage will be built and placed on top of the baby cage as a secondary brooder cage that I can put a heat lamp on top of.
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That wire looks big enough for snakes and rats to get in.

Sagebrush said:

Well it has definitely been a hard week and a half for sure. I got the Flemish to their new home, where they are doing awesome and adjusting well, and have broken down cages to rebuild some more appropriate for my quail. I moved the 3 breeding Dutch into a breeding colony that is 8'x3'x30". They are doing okay but the buck is well being a buck and the girls are letting him know that they do not appreciate the attention. I will be making sand boxes that will attach to the sides of the cages once I have my S/O available to do the cutting of the sheet wood to the sizes I would like. Last two pictures are of the babies who will be 3 weeks old tomorrow that got moved out of the house today. One last cage will be built and placed on top of the baby cage as a secondary brooder cage that I can put a heat lamp on top of.
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I agree with @TamiPac about the rat and snake risk.
I also want to suggest that you keep an eye on the birds' feet. Giving them a sandbox should help them maintain their feathers, but when we kept coturnix on wire, their feet suffered terribly. They can't keep themselves from scratching while they're eating, and the wire really tore up their feet. If we were to keep quail on wire again, I would try placing their feeder over another tray that could hold sand or shavings, big enough to give them a safe place to scratch. (That would also catch some of the food they tossed, and they could recover in from the sand or shavings.) Of course, eventually you may end up with nearly a solid-bottomed enclosure!

Thank you both. As far as the mesh goes, I will be getting more hardware cloth once I can afford it, to cover the larger mesh. I know I have some smaller pieces of plywood that I can put in under the feeders to allow them to scratch without it being on the wire at least. I may eventually go to solid bottom cages but not currently. I made these cages by upcycling materials from other cages.

Pretty excited to share. Hope it's ok to share on this thread.
I won a hatching time gift certificate a while back but everything there is pretty expensive so I've just held onto it. They have a brooder I've looked at that I can use for both quail and chickens that would be a bit better suited for where I can have them during the winter. It has a water system, feeder, heat with thermometer etc all included. Not only was the brooder on early Black Friday sale but they had a "spend this much take off this much" offer and the gift certificate. Made it pretty cheap for what it is. I'm excited to get it set up and get to incubating. Merry Christmas to us! He he he!
Just processed our first set of roos. Also did a couple aggressive hens. A couple young hens have started laying in the last week. Between the new group and the purchased flock were getting 10 plus eggs a day right now. Nervous about starting incubating but excited too. So glad I read this thread and finally pulled the trigger on them. Y'all are such wonderful influences.

@R Buns Hey that is amazing! I am now getting 30 eggs a day as my last hatch has started laying over the last couple days. I am waiting till spring before I start hatching again due to it being far to cold for my brooder plate to keep the chicks warm outside and with the amount I want to incubate and hatch each round, I need a lot of space.

I just read through all of this! We ordered 120 Cosmos coturnix hatching eggs from MyShire Farm. They should be here by Monday at the latest. We are excited but expecting a low hatch rate. Hope it's OK to share on your post!

I was getting concerned with lowering hatch rates, chick fatality and foot deformities. I went out and got some fresh roos and BLAM! We have had 2 hatches that were great. No foot deformities, no mysterious deaths. I'm going to look for some new hens next and see if I can't phase out the originals that are apparently inbred at this point.

When I first started with quail a long time ago it was thought that inbreeding with them wasn't quite the problem it was with other animals. I am now convinced it IS a problem and going forward I will have that at the front of my mind.

@therabbitlady It is perfectly fine with me! Do share away as we all learn from each other and I am hoping that this thread will help others in the future.

@TamiPac That is something I have been concerned with as well. I have 3 different lines I can now mix from if needed but will keep separate as much as possible and just bring in new blood every 2 years for the hens and each spring for the roos.

I'm going to disagree with the inbreeding bit. Kind of.

I think alot of people aren't culling hard enough and using anything that can produce to bump their numbers up. Production, production, production. But that means you let them reproduce more and more. Making more and more that have foot problems, beak problems, less thrifty,...
That combines with some people who breed closely. Without removing the problem havers you make a population of problem havers. Selective breeding only works when you * are selective * about who gets to stay and breed.

I follow Theiving Otter farm. They share alot of good info and pics of good vs bad confirmation, beak shape, head shape, etc.