Quail

This week we talked about quail, separated some quail, puzzled over some quail, questioned some quail, laughed about some quail when they answered, and generally enjoyed some quail.

We have a group of 29 quail from our hatch back the end of November.  They are doing amazingly well.  At eight weeks old the 19 girls are laying around 12 eggs per day.  We removed 6 of the 10 males from the group.

The 6 boys who were removed are now in a separate cage we refer to as "Freezer Camp". 

 

Breeding groups do best with 1 male per 4-5 females.  This gives the best fertility rates without the females being over-bred (resulting in head and back of the neck wounds) and without the males fighting among themselves to assert dominance.

We will set eggs in an incubator later this week from this group and hope for a better outcome than last time!  It may be a little early for their eggs, but we will see what happens.

The quail in the condos are puzzling us.  These are two different hatches, one from September 18th and the other from October 9th making them 20 and 16 weeks old.  They should start laying by 8-10 weeks.  Hours of light affect laying so we have put shop lights over the condos to give them around 17 hours of light per day.  They have the same feed as all the other quail, a high-protein game bird feed.  They have yet to lay one single egg.  The males are crowing and doing what they are supposed to be doing.  Our male/female ratio is 1/5.  Yet they have not begun laying.  I cannot figure this one out.  Someone in our community who has been breeding quail longer than we have suggested there might be something spooking them.  If they do not begin laying in the next week we will either move them into the shed or go ahead and send them to Freezer Camp with the excess males.  I am befuddled.

 

 

Finally, we asked some quail a question.  

"What are you?"

They answered.  I am hearing, "Stupid quail!"  

What do you think?