these are jumbo quail.... I cant get over how much they look like bubble bees when they just hatched out
bubble bees
- Thread starter Mary Ann's Rabbitry
- Start date
Help Support Rabbit Talk Forum:
MamaSheepdog
Well-known member
How cute! Boy, you sure have a lot of them- about 50? Who is the lone little yellow chick in there?
there is more in the incubator hatching out.. I think there is 175 eggs I put in there...
the white quail is a recessive gene ...
the white quail is a recessive gene ...
- Joined
- Jan 20, 2010
- Messages
- 14,517
- Reaction score
- 23
Aw, they're so cute! 
Congrats on the hatch! When I raised those, that was my favorite time to see them. I still miss having them, but DH won't let me have anymore until we move to a larger property.
They are very cute, Mary Ann! Love those stripes!
Love those stripes!
The buttons are even cuter
I did one coturnix hatch of 200 and then found them to not be worth the effort versus raising bantam chickens who could free range and sit their own eggs
http://smg.photobucket.com/user/aqh88/m ... 1.mp4.html
I did one coturnix hatch of 200 and then found them to not be worth the effort versus raising bantam chickens who could free range and sit their own eggs
http://smg.photobucket.com/user/aqh88/m ... 1.mp4.html
I had couurnix too, well until I ended up with about 300 eggs per day - still have cases of pickled quail eggs and, for the hassle of butchering them for the tiny bit of meat isn't worth it to me. The last 100 of them ended up wolf food.
Cute as chicks but, a messy, feed wasting hassle after a few weeks.
Cute as chicks but, a messy, feed wasting hassle after a few weeks.
My coturnix found dozens of ways to suicide or kill others. I finally filled my water rims with grit so they could stand in them and peck at the gaps in the wet stones. Otherwise even with the marbles I used for bantams they'd get soaked, pile under the heat lamps, squish the ones on bottom, and they wouldn't learn from it. After 3-5 days the chicken chicks would stop doing things like climbing in water troughs but quail ran right on through it until they were too big to fit their fat bodies inside. I had to remove the top with the circle feeding holes off the trough feeders because they'd crawl inside and get stuck unaware of how to get out. I had some feeders hanging by zip tie to the bars and when they were empty they sat just an inch higher than when they were full. Every time I filled them and the quail chicks piled on them to feed I'd have to scrape the ones underneath out because they would become squished and trapped on each other. I finally got them out in the coop and they promptly started dying to everything you can imagine. They'd sleep with their heads sticking out the bars and I'd find headless bodies the next day. The more died, the more stressed they got, the more they piled, the more of them slept with body parts out of the wire. Even with smaller wire I had raccoons pull adult quail piece by piece out of 1/2 x1/2" wire until there was nothing but blood and feathers. About 30 just got spooked to death by a cat. Out of 200 maybe half made it to butchering. Compared to a 90% success rate including hatching losses in the bantams.
First of all.. theses are not your standard size quail... they are jumbos.. a mature female are almost a pound.. so I have them for meat for my dogs
And goes for water ect... Make sure you have a quail waterer so they don't drown.. and they have to feed properly as a lot of people that has quail don't know how.. they think giving them chicken feed is fine.
And goes for water ect... Make sure you have a quail waterer so they don't drown.. and they have to feed properly as a lot of people that has quail don't know how.. they think giving them chicken feed is fine.
es, you have to feed them properly but even doing it all right, they waste a lot of feed, and there isn't much meat on them for the time and effort into them. I tried, the quail did well here, just not worth the cost. 25.00 per 50/lbs of feed, going throughI agree 2 bags a week with 250 birds, and half of that ending up on the ground, in the poop.
Tried ground housing the first lot of them, first time it rained, every one of them died (and they were adults) so have to be completely in a roofed pen where water cannot run into the pen - that means a raised pen and, then half the feed ends up on the ground under the pen.
I agree with Akane, they are about the dumbest birds I have ever raised and do pile up too easily, even when there is no reason for them to pile up. I learned not to put more than 25 in any one brooder (brooders that hold 100 large breed chicken chicks.) if I didn't want the quail piling up and suffocating the ones on the bottom of the pile. Even with plenty of room and even heating, they all pile together.
Tried ground housing the first lot of them, first time it rained, every one of them died (and they were adults) so have to be completely in a roofed pen where water cannot run into the pen - that means a raised pen and, then half the feed ends up on the ground under the pen.
I agree with Akane, they are about the dumbest birds I have ever raised and do pile up too easily, even when there is no reason for them to pile up. I learned not to put more than 25 in any one brooder (brooders that hold 100 large breed chicken chicks.) if I didn't want the quail piling up and suffocating the ones on the bottom of the pile. Even with plenty of room and even heating, they all pile together.
that's to bad... I really like them.. I get allot of meat for what they do eat... chickens can waste food to if you just put it on the ground and the just scratch it out.. so same thing here... you need proper equipment. So less waste .......they are the fast growing birds that I know of.. start to lay at 8 weeks old.. I butcher the extra males around 6 weeks old. They don't have the oils on their feathers like a chicken does.. so they shouldnt get wet.. I have 90 now in that bucket.. I don't have pile ups.. but I have food all on the bottom with I put through a coffee grinder for the first week..
MamaSheepdog
Well-known member
Good luck with them, Mary Ann! I hope they do well for you. :clover:
Out of four turkeys I bought last year, only one made it to the dinner table, but I am going to try again anyway.
Out of four turkeys I bought last year, only one made it to the dinner table, but I am going to try again anyway.
I fed all my birds on gamebird feed and just put out an extra dish of oyster shell for the laying hens. The birds grew much better on it and the bantams feathered near as fast as quail. Chicken feed is formulated with the minimum necessary to raise chickens in order to keep cost down. The higher protein and especially animal products in gamebird feed really improved their health. Then they free ranged so well they didn't hardly eat anything mid summer through late fall. I would go through 1 maybe 2 bags for 80 chickens during that time of year. Winter feeding was rather expensive though since they didn't even want to leave the coops for the -30F several feet deep snow in Jan.
