boilermaker
NES Member
This line makes me laugh. Loose change, nope. Loose ammo, yup.
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Raising Quail
- Thread starter Mike-Mike
- Start date
This line makes me laugh. Loose change, nope. Loose ammo, yup.
boilermaker
NES Member
Are those wood pellets or feed on the floor of your pen?
Got the little buggers out of the house today and into the garage. I was waiting for them to all feather out but my wife has had it. I had set them up in the room that is supposed to be her craft room. Had to hide her guns so I don't get killed in my sleep. They are probably 90-95% feathered. Put some board insulation on top so they should be all right with the heat lamp. I have 44 left and it looks like an even split between boys and girls. THe little guy was a late starter and has mostly caught up with the others.
Amazing
Got too many critters around that I think would get to them and I like being able to just pull the line to move it around the yard without having to mess with it at all. With my chicken tractor it was a pain with moving it without a bottom. The chickens kept wanting to get run over. I am going to remove the runners from this one and the others I make to get them closer to the ground.
boilermaker
NES Member
Our bobwhite have started to lay so I took this pic. Starting on the left, chicken egg (large grade), pheasant egg and quail egg.
Got hammered yesterday. Something pulled 4 quail through the lobster wire. Not a pleasant sight to see. Wrapped the cages in hardware cloth and set a trap so hopefully that will solve the problem. Thinking either a coon or a fisher as we have had both. Puts a dent in my egg production.
On a happier note started my first batch of pickled quail eggs.
On a happier note started my first batch of pickled quail eggs.
Quick update:
In the last few weeks my males tried to kill each other so I separated them etc. Today I put one on marinade. Otherwise everything is going great. I walk outside at about 1630 and change their water, give them a scoop of food and pickup 6 eggs. Every few days I push the tractor another 4' to the left. Once in while toss in a lettuce leaf or a hunk of raw corn. I have been giving eggs away and seem to always have about 40-60 in the fridge and we haven't bought a chicken egg in 4 months. I would say this little project is a success so far.
How are you guys doing?
-Mike
In the last few weeks my males tried to kill each other so I separated them etc. Today I put one on marinade. Otherwise everything is going great. I walk outside at about 1630 and change their water, give them a scoop of food and pickup 6 eggs. Every few days I push the tractor another 4' to the left. Once in while toss in a lettuce leaf or a hunk of raw corn. I have been giving eggs away and seem to always have about 40-60 in the fridge and we haven't bought a chicken egg in 4 months. I would say this little project is a success so far.
How are you guys doing?
-Mike
We were in egg craziness for a while but they knocked off a lot since the attack on them. Slowly coming back. I processed a dozen of the boys for Easter. THey were good. My son wouldnt eat them because they were quail. GOing to process the others on Thurs and freeze them for a couple months and see if he will eat them when they arent so fresh in his mind. My daughter was funny she said we took them from start to finish. Made some pickled eggs last week. These make fantastic pickled eggs. I was going to start to hatch some more next week but my wife is not as enthusiastic as I am so I agreed to hold off until some other projects are done.
Well I was at 6 eggs a day all summer. I am now at about 3 a day without any artificial light. I am most likely going to make appetizers out of the birds in a few weeks and get some chicks in the spring. How bout you guys?
About 40 years ago I started with 2 pheasant cocks and 15 hens. By the next summer I had about 250 and so many eggs I didn't know what to do with them. Then I got a bunch of pharaoh quail and ended up with hundreds. I did learn fast that every group that hatched had to be separated from the next group because the larger ones would peck through the skulls of the younger ones until they killed them. That is where the saying "pecking order" came from.
By the end of the first summer I had a massive problem because I was storing the feed in 55 gallon plastic drums. HE HE. I happened to look out my window at dusk and saw a RAT run across the driveway. Then I saw another then another. I grabbed the 22 rifle and went down to my 6 pens that were 12' by 36' each. In side the pens I had feeders that the birds could stand on each side to eat. They were about 48" long and had 4 in each pen. To my amazement there were literally thousands of rats eating out of the feeders and there was no room for any of the birds to eat.
To make a long story short I asked 2 friends to help me do some hunting. The next night we killed about 400 and went into the pens and cleaned them out. It took more than a week to kill (??????) most of the rest. I bought 4 large galvanized garbage cans with tops to keep the feed in and put a sh$t load of rat poison around where I kept the feed which kept them in check. I am not exaggerating about the numbers either.
As for pickled eggs I did a lot of them. I used the large pickle jars (1 or 2 gallon size ? ) filled it with hard boiled peeled pheasant eggs then put a half can of beer (drank the rest ) then put a chopped onion + garlic and some times add some hot chili peppers and if I wanted the eggs to be purple color I'd add a can of sliced pickled beats then fill it up with vinegar. I only left the first jar in the kitchen frig once. The misses said if I ever did that again I would have to sleep with a tooth pick to keep one eye open incase she decided to wake me up with a broom handle. I ended up getting a used one to keep in the barn just for the pickled eggs in. They would take at least 7 days until the flavor would soak through. Boy are they good too.
I don't remember this, but she may have made me sleep in the barn after eating a few of them. They probably gave me gas.
By the end of the first summer I had a massive problem because I was storing the feed in 55 gallon plastic drums. HE HE. I happened to look out my window at dusk and saw a RAT run across the driveway. Then I saw another then another. I grabbed the 22 rifle and went down to my 6 pens that were 12' by 36' each. In side the pens I had feeders that the birds could stand on each side to eat. They were about 48" long and had 4 in each pen. To my amazement there were literally thousands of rats eating out of the feeders and there was no room for any of the birds to eat.
To make a long story short I asked 2 friends to help me do some hunting. The next night we killed about 400 and went into the pens and cleaned them out. It took more than a week to kill (??????) most of the rest. I bought 4 large galvanized garbage cans with tops to keep the feed in and put a sh$t load of rat poison around where I kept the feed which kept them in check. I am not exaggerating about the numbers either.
As for pickled eggs I did a lot of them. I used the large pickle jars (1 or 2 gallon size ? ) filled it with hard boiled peeled pheasant eggs then put a half can of beer (drank the rest ) then put a chopped onion + garlic and some times add some hot chili peppers and if I wanted the eggs to be purple color I'd add a can of sliced pickled beats then fill it up with vinegar. I only left the first jar in the kitchen frig once. The misses said if I ever did that again I would have to sleep with a tooth pick to keep one eye open incase she decided to wake me up with a broom handle. I ended up getting a used one to keep in the barn just for the pickled eggs in. They would take at least 7 days until the flavor would soak through. Boy are they good too.
I don't remember this, but she may have made me sleep in the barn after eating a few of them. They probably gave me gas.
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I'll take them if nobody wants them. I do have some left from last year but they will go to good use as I am getting many more birds this year.
Chris M.
NES Member
Here's a pic of my quail waterer. These nipples work really well. No fouling. I top it off once a week and done. Add a drop of bleach evert now and then just to stave off coop viruses.
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I was going to do something similar this year.. Do those nipples work well for quail? Do they figure it out on their own?
Great thanks.
