Quail in Winter

Coturnix Quail are remarkable little beasties.  Their temperature tolerance is from the low teens to 105+.  If you add a heat source in the winter or a fan in the summer, it is even greater.  

At NowHere we might add some wood chips to their boxes for the outdoor quail if the temperatures are expected into the low 20s.  For the ones in cages in the shed we change them from sand boxes to wood chip boxes.

Last week we moved the four-week-old chicks outdoors; they were fully feathered and are considered adults at this point (the rate at which they mature still amazes me).  However, since it was their first bout of cold weather we decided to put a heat lamp out with them just to be on the safe side. 

They were quite happy about that!

We currently have about 85 quail.  The shed has 31; 3 male and 28 female.  These quail have lights on timers to get 17 hours of light daily and are laying about 25 eggs daily.  

The outdoor quail are 31 who hatched the first of December, 10 who hatched in September, and 13 who hatched in October.  While the females in these hatches are fully mature and should be laying, they are not.  Why?  Because we have not added any supplemental lights in their areas.  Interesting, isn't it?  

A lot of people prefer to not use supplemental light and allow the girls to have a more natural cycle including some "down" time.  In the past, we have preferred that as well.  However, the productive life cycle for our quail is little more than 12 months; because of this and because we are turning this into a business, we have opted for lights.

Later this week Cletus will get out and add light to the two condos and we will rearrange everyone to have only breeder sets ~ 10 females and 2 males ~ in each condo.  The remaining males will go into tractors and continue growing on grass and feed until they go to freezer camp.

In the meantime, we have 49 eggs in the incubator.  These will go into lock-down on Sunday ~ the point when we turn off the automatic turner, increase the humidity to 70%, and wait with bated breath for the hatch.  When they go into lock-down we will begin collecting more eggs to incubate and hope to start those eggs in the incubator later in the week.

 

I keep a sign on the door to remember when to start lock-down.

 

Because the low temperatures are expected to stay under 50 for an undetermined time, we will be back to having the babies in the cold-weather room (where we keep plants and animals during cold snaps), also known as Cletus' work room. 

Earlier this week we got out and visited a couple of feed stores and contacted another by email and two of those stores are interested in carrying some of our quail for their Chick Days!  We are quite excited about this possibility and will be increasing our hatchings accordingly.  We will keep you posted on who may be carrying our chicks after we get something more definite.  I will be a bit fidgety in the time between "interested" and "let's make this happen".

Stay warm, my friends!