May 15th, 2012 | 
Author: Great News! We have eggs finally. It has been a long eggless winter, so this is a good day.
Didn’t have anywhere else to post this, but I am pretty excited. I have been playing with aquapontics. I have an aquarium with half a dozen talapi in it and have it plumbed to a grow bed. After a slow start due to weak lighting it finally looks like it is turning the corner. Here are a couple of pictures of my lettuce and a tomato plant.
The final 18 birds were moved to the breeding cages. Then a huge thunderstorm rolled through. Everyone survived. On a down note. I ended up with 4 too many male birds. And if I had to be honest I couldn’t tell the sex of the A&M quail do they all went in the same cage.
Last week I moved the remaining chicks to a brooder I keep in the shed. I say remaining because I lost 3 chicks leaving me with 19. The shed will protect them until they fully feather out and when they are about 5 weeks old I move them outside to a grow out cage (old rabbit hutch). At about eight weeks I will match them up 2 female to one male in the breeding cages. Can’t wait to try and determine male/female on the white ones.
Posted in backyard quail, coturnix quail, raising quail | 
Tags: chicks, quail, spring | 
No Comments »
Babies started hatching Tuesday night / Wednesday morning. In the end it was my normal 50% hatch rate with a total of 22. I was a little disappointed to see my eBay purchased netted me three Taxas A&M white quail even though the description clearly stated they where jumbo brown – not assorted. We have to complain and see if he makes it right.
Posted in backyard quail, jumbo quail, quail incubator, raising quail |
Tags: backyard quail, eggs, incubator |
No Comments »
So went away for spring break while eggs incubated – I returned to a very dry incubator – we will just have to see what happens. I removed them from the egg turner today and they should hatch Wednesday or Thursday if any of them made it. If not back to eBay!
Posted in backyard quail, quail incubator, raising quail |
Tags: eggs, incubator, quail |
No Comments »
I have been a little lax in my posting, but with good reason: I took the winter off. My new favorite phrase: “I sent all my birds to freezer camp” last fall because I didn’t want to deal with stomping through the snow to replace frozen water. But who would have guessed 4th warmest winter. 
Anyway spring is here and time to get back at it. I ordered some eggs on EBay and they came in over the weekend. I gave them a couple days to settle from traveling and placed them in a warm moist incubator this morning. 17 days should have chicks a cheeping. I stuck with the jumbo brown quail as they are easy to raise and identify the sexes. Plus they are good layers and meat birds – dual purpose.
My plan is to order a couple different sets of eggs over the next couple of months to diversify my flock DNA.
I’ll keep you posted on the hatch and have a great spring!
Posted in backyard quail, coturnix quail, quail incubator, raising quail |
Tags: eggs, incubation, quail |
No Comments »
Raising quail in your backyard can be both fun and profitable. I main do it because it is the highest form of farming my city allows on my small lot. It provides meat and eggs for my family and gives me a hobby. I keep anywhere from 20 – 50 birds at a time with 18 dedicated to eggs and the others in various stages of grow out for meat or replacement breeders. Each female will lay a single egg a day or every other day given the time of year and lighting conditions. I have raised mostly coturnix quail, this year I plan to try some Texas A&M. It should be interesting since you cannot sex them by color.
First you will need a cage. A good rule of thumb is about two square feet per bird. I have cages I found on Craig’s list specifically made for raising quail, they are slanted so the eggs roll to the front. There are plenty of plans online, so I won’t labor the point. I also have an old two part rabbit hutch that I use as a grow out cage. Make sure the birds are secure against predators. I lost several birds early on until I used a small size wire to cover the cages. Give the birds a place of shade to get out of the hot sun, some sort of roof system will also protect them from rain. Also, make sure it easy to clean up below the cages. I spread straw below mine and rake it once a week onto the compost pile before adding new straw. Keeps the smell down.
If you are looking for fertile eggs it is recommend to have 3:1 female to male ratio. I have found 2:1 works better in my smaller cages to keep the fighting down.
Feed is very important; if you want consistent egg laying it should be 24% or higher protein. Personally I use the Purina Layena. Occasionally they also receive extras from the garden, fruits, vegetables, and greens. In addition, for sustained egg production a calcium supplement like crushed oyster shells is recommended.
As far as “profitable” I will occasionally list either eggs or chicks for sale online and can make about enough to cover the next 40lb bag of food.
Posted in backyard quail, coturnix quail, quail information |
Tags: backyard quail, coturnix quail, raising quail |
No Comments »
Thanks to my wife, the kids got me an egg turner for father’s day. After my last hatch plus eight weeks of noisy babies I was going to wait, but couldn’t stand it and loaded the incubator up again. It will hold like 140 eggs, but if my hatch rate improves not sure what I would do with all so I only loaded 47.
Posted in coturnix quail, quail incubator, raising quail |
Tags: coturnix quail, Egg turner |
No Comments »
So once again I had about 50% hatch rate. I was able to sell a few and at 8 weeks I butchered 14.
Posted in coturnix quail, quail incubator, raising quail |
Tags: butcher, incubator, quail |
No Comments »