Quail up date.

I am luving this project. Our second hatch of A&M`s are growing well although we did not get a great hatch from the eggs we brought back from the UK. We only got ten hatch from twenty four eggs. I cracked open some of the no-showers at twenty one days and found a number of fully formed dead chicks! After checking out various sites it seems that old eggs may have been the cause (amongst others). Something to do with the lack of proper lung development. We lost two chicks a few days after hatching but these were clearly rinnocks and did not prosper. I am building an outside enclosure for the Quail and hope to have it finished in a week or so. Deryn, we are now getting eggs from your birds and the cock is doing his stuff so we shall be setting some more eggs soon. We have also eaten a few of the excess cocks which were very tasty. How are yours doing?

Its very satisfying when things hatch, always exciting, I don't think you can ever get fed up with it.
Sorry your A&M's didn't hatch so well, hopefully you will be able to hatch some of your own eggs from them too. Glad to hear the ones from us are doing well, you will soon have more than you need. Hope your enclosure has some growing room, at least quail are only small and don't take up much room. How will you keep the 2 breeds separate or are you going to run them together?
We are in the process of collecting up eggs to get the next batch on the go, hopefully another 2 days and the incubator will be on again. We sold all the last hatch and now need more for us as Nick has managed to get our eggs in our local Supervalu. Fingers crossed they sell well.

Sounds like you have got your Quail enterprise sorted. What age did you sell your last hatch? We sold some eggs at the mart last week but this is not really our plan. So Super Value are stocking your eggs. I will keep an eye out for them over here. Is there much official paperwork involved with selling to a retailer i.e Revenue etc. Have you had any luck with selling the meat? I will probably run the A&M`s with the rest. looking at the chicks now that they are growing feathers it is likely they are cross breed. Some have brown blotches on them.

We sell them at about 3 weeks, once they are off heat and we can sex them. Not looking into selling the meat as don't want to get into the rules and regs. We tend to give them to a local that rears birds of prey as we don't eat that many.
We have only gone to our local shop not sure whats involved if we get big. We are already registered as a business anyway.

Cool. Good luck

I`m in another bit of a quandary with these Quail. While growing them on they were confined and apart from some vicious squabbles between the males they were progressing nicely. They were laying well and looking good while I finished their outside pen. In the finished pen I put plenty of hidey holes, boxes, feed, water and grit. All a Quail could ask for as I thought. They have been in the pen now for about two weeks and have gone off lay. They also cower about and panic a bit when I enter the pen. These were the birds that I could pick up with little problems and layed alot of eggs while confined. Now they are different birds altogether. Seeing Quail in both domestic and commercial cages on You Tube. They are cramped but lay fine which I have always thought indicated contented birds. I suppose with alot of space the feel less secure and given time they should settle down. I thought they would love their new surroundings better than being confined in a cage. Any comments lads?

Hopefully they will start laying again soon. I would imagine it was a bit of a shock, they are very skittish birds.

They seem like a troublesome crop...

Well worth it for the eggs though Sean

Very interesting post ...I always thought quail were easy birds to raise ...I’ll be watching your journey with interest wayland before I decide to commit

My birds are now in autumn mode in their outside pen. Fox proof it is but we have been having some fun with the rats! Tenacious critters look for any weakness in the various barriers in place to keep them out, but I think I have cracked the problem. I have a steel barrier buried a foot under ground. This was done with the fox in mind but rats dig under it! Solution! I have a mound of broken ceramic tiles. Any sign of burrowing I dig it out and put a thick layer of sharp tile sherds. Stops them in their tracks. Eventually the whole area will have this buried layer which still allows for drainage etc. The A & M quail are a great disappointment. They are described as a large bird, mine aren't. They will be in the pot soon enough! The japs from Deryn are fine birds, we will be breeding from them next year, I need another cock bird though. I have been feeding them on the 30% Turkey crum mix but would like to get them off this. While looking at a more natural diet I am trying to get them on to 24% Game bird mix, but the pellets are larger so we will see how they go with them. The birds are a lot calmer now and dont throw a hissy fit every time I pass. Onward and upward.

Glad they have worked out well for you. Good luck finding a male, they can be very aggressive towards the hens. We keep ours separate until we need them. They may well be OK in an aviary but keep an eye on them especially the back of the head.

Well the greatest plans of mice and men. I have moved my birds from the avery into a polytunnel. Even though it has a roof the rain has been driving horizontally and the whole ground area is soaked. Poor girls. Snug as a bug now though, and loving it. The A & M`s are finally in the freezer and despite their small size they do carry some flesh. The japs have grown into fine birds and good weight. So by and large we are ok.

Polytunnels are great all sorts in the winter, aren't they? We have kindling wood drying out in a corner of ours

We got a clutch of eggs in the incubator so looking forward to having some new additions on the plot. The A,M`s we had last year although smaller than the japs were very nice to eat. We had two each but one would have been enough. Very meaty bird so we may get some more hatching eggs this year.

Not doing very well this year. I put the chicks into a brooding box with a heat pad set at the lowest height. They were all found scattered and dead in the morning. The heat pad was working so I have no idea why they got themselves chilled. So moving on. I put the cock in with the hens again to get some more fertile eggs. He chased the girls around the pen then keeled over and died! Over excited I guess. Had a heart attack. Ho Hum.

Hi Cristy, did you have a light on over the chicks 24 hrs a day as well as the heat pad. We lost a batch when I accidentally turned the light off one night. As to the cock bird at least he died happy.
Any idea why ours are not laying very well?

Hi Deryn. No I didn't use the lamp. I thought the idea of the heat pad was so I didn't have to use the lamp! I will use the lamp next time. My birds are not laying well either.

It only needs to be a low wattage white light bulb Cristy not a heat lamp. Sorry to hear yours aren't laying either.

Well, we are up and running again at last. We have a new cock, some more hens and they are now laying well. I will leave it a couple of weeks and then try the incubator again.

Good luck this time Cristy

Well, I have now just set thirty eggs in the incubator, so we shall now see how good my new cock is.

We had a good hatch from the last clutch of eggs. 26 out of the 30 hatched and with just 3 born deformed and a few more casualties the rest are now growing well. Fingers crossed.

These birds now grow a pace. We have now got sixteen survivors from the original hatch of twenty six. These birds are destined for the freezer and we plan to have two more hatches this season. There are eight Duck eggs in the bater at the moment.

Good luck with the hatching Cristy