Weather Plans

 

Do you have a weather plan?

Living in the southeast all our lives we are familiar with the need for a weather plan.  It might be something as simple as hunker down in the bathtub for a half-hour.  It might be planning for a lengthy time with no electricity and no running water (Tropical Storm Alberto, 1994).

 

Our weather plan changed a bit when we moved from Central Alabama to Coastal Alabama.  Here we do not concern ourselves with ice storms (like January 2014 when the pipes going under the house froze and broke while Cletus was out of town).  

Even the jeep could not make it up the hill with the ice layer

We do have tornadoes, but the biggest challenge here is the occasional tropical storm/hurricane.

It’s one thing to have a weather plan for two humans and two house cats.  It’s another matter when one is starting a quail farm business. 

So, what is our weather plan?

In the event of a serious hurricane (category 3 or more), it’s rather simple.  All the quail go to freezer camp which would take us a couple hours to accomplish.  After the storm we rebuild whatever did not survive the storm.  Then we contact Zack and Jenna Greene at Myshire Farms to order a batch of hatching eggs.  The eggs take 16 days to incubate, then 4-5 weeks for the quail to reach maturity and start laying, and we are back in production in less than 2 months.  

 


 How’s that for simple?!

We are not worried about Francine being a problem for us; however, it is nice to know what we would need to do if we did have a major storm predicted.

In the meantime; stay safe, Louisiana friends.  We are praying for you!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Watermelons And a Quail Recipe

    For a lot of years each fall when we discuss how the garden went over the past year, Cletus has said something along the lines of, "I am not trying watermelons any more!".  For a lot of years plus one, each winter when we are planning the next year's garden he says something along the lines of, "I am going to give watermelons one more try.  If they do not work this year, I am done with them". This year we have used landscape fabric in the garden and it has been helpful for things we often struggle to grow.  It keeps the weeds down, it keeps the pests down, and it keeps the water in the soil.  A few weeks ago we were looking over the garden and realized there was a watermelon over on one section of the fabric!   The variety is not a seedless hybrid but just a good, old-fashioned, seed-heavy, seed-spitting watermelon.  While it is not as sweet as some seedless varieties, it has that extra we-raised-it-ourselves-in-our-own-garden flavor. ...
Read more

Quail Housing Part 2: Cages

Image
  Once we decided to stop using aviaries for our quail, Cletus started perusing YouTube Videos (a wealth of information!) for how different people built quail cages.  We both thought "Roll-Out" cages were interesting for the design to allow eggs to "roll out" to the front of the cage where they could be retrieved easily.  We got this idea from Dale's Quails (he sells kits) and Wynola Ranch (they sell prebuilt wire roll-outs).  Cletus was still working an 8 to 5 job at this time, but he got to work after 5 and on weekends to get these built.  Oh my! The first time you build anything is the most challenging, isn't it?  We did not purchase a set of blueprint plans from anyone, or a kit; he simply went to Home Depot, bought the lumber, the wire, and the hardware, and got to work.  It cost more and took longer than we were expecting.  There were some frustrations along the way.  But eventually he got 'er done (he always does; Cletus is AMAZING lik...
Read more

Recipe: Scotch Quail Eggs

Image
  Have you heard of Scotch Eggs?  They are a unique dish made of hard boiled eggs wrapped in sausage, breaded, and fried.   I made some years ago with our chicken eggs.  The size of the eggs made me question just how in the world does one serve these?? I tried slicing them different ways (wedges like a lemon, round slices, quartered) and they never seemed to work right for me. When we began keeping quail several years ago I wondered how quail eggs would do as Scotch Eggs.  I figured they would work better given their smaller size, but somehow I just never got around to trying them. A few weeks ago a gentleman stopped by our booth at the market and was happy to find our quail eggs.  I asked him how he was planning to use them and he told me he was going to make Scotch Eggs.   That settled it.  It was time for me to try my hand at this! Cletus has some food allergies, so my choice for sausage reflects our need to avoid corn products but yo...
Read more