4 posts tagged “quail”

Bloomin' Heck!

 

I never knew that quail could cause so much trouble!

 

My friend Lottie has just started in the quail keeping hobbie, and I made a comment about them which has spread like a rash over the quail keeping world. I stated that they were a mix of Italian and Japanese quail, which is what I and many others call them! However some people have decided that they no longer want to call them 'Italians' but 'Goldens' instead, this is because calling them Italians makes them sound like a seperate species to the Japanese when truthully they are just a colour mutation. However there are a few noticeable differences between them, but I have come in for a rollocking from the quail keeping world.

Here are a few of the comments that I have discovered on various forums:

 

What a dipstick he is!

Talks out of his (|) if you ask me

Wait till they let me join in, I'll be putting him straight too.pmpl

I went back reading all his quail related posts - hes an ass, does he want to put folk of keeping them???

I'm glad hes still sulking with me

Our DJ knows more about quail rearing/keeping than he does, and he's only 11

I wonder if he was just overcrowding

Poultry are only cannibalistic if there is a dying bird around, they will attack it and eat it, they do the same in the wild to

 

 And then when I replied I got this:

Thats because your a pratt

 

Such a shame really! How such wiked people could be so aggresive over ones personal opinion, a comment which has been hugely taken out of all context! I had a peek on one forum today and the insults are still flying around!

This has nothing to do with Lottie, her birds look fantastic and I wish her all the best in her venture.

 

www.kooringa.com Is the place to find out all about them.

 

Today I went to Acocks Green near to Birmingham to collect 12 new quail for myself. They are 4 weeks old and I got 12 (8 hens and 4 cocks) for £10 a real bargain. They are in temporary accomodation at the moment, but I am hoping to get their new £250 estate this week so I shall post photos as and when they move in. These birds will be new breeding stock and hopefully they will provide an abundance of eggs to sell on for both eating and/or hatching.

On Friday, I managed to get an hour up the allotment and I  emptied the compost bin and moved it to it's new location at the top of the allotment.

The plot is in OK condition, but I need to do some weeding, but not as much as I thought. I also bought my First and Second early potatoes, I might put a row in tomorrow. I also have some Garlic, I didn't plant it in November which is reccomended so that the frost can get to it, but I have put in the freezer and then it will go in the fridge, then the freezer for a week or so and that should do it just fine!

I have to clean out all the animals tomorrow, and I can take all the muck up to the allotment and put it on the compost heap.

Let's hope the weather is as good tomorrow as it has been today!

Martin

11 have hatched and there are 3 eggs that have pipped.

They're so cute, maybe as small or smaller than a cardigan button!

They've all fluffed up now, as they come out of the incubator as not much else but soggy, skin. But they look very cute now, they haven't eaten or drunk yet as far as I know, but they are doing well, and are a little bit more mobile than a few hours ago.

Here are 2 rubbish pictures.

I'll take some more later and upload them then!

Martin

Edit: There are now 12.

 

Update:  13 chicks looks like final amount!

Again poor lighting gives rubbish photos. The little fella below has a deformed foot and he is not walking too well, hopefully it will sort itself out whilst it grows. He's a bit still, but living, I have to take him to get food and water every so often because he doesn't move alot, which could be good or bad for the injury. Any ideas? I'll post this on the Quail Forum aswell. It's not the end of the world, When I did work experience at DFT one of the quail had a deformed foot and the result of that was just a limp. More photos.... This is the brooder that they are in. It is a hamster/guinea pig cage that I bought off ebay and collected from Redditch. It only cost £5 and it means that I have 2 brooding facilities now, which is exciting! They have marbles in their drinker as they are so small and one of them almost drowned within 10 minutes of being put in the brooder! Their feed is in the bottom bit of a feeder, they weren't too keen on using the feeder because the food was too high/low for them to get to it. So I just put all the food on the plate bit, and it gives them more space to work on. The lamp being used is a Tesco desk lamp, with a 30W bulb in! _________________

Well for the last 2 weeks we've been on dial up as we had a rather difficult transaction from one broadband supplier to another.

Well since I last posted the garden has been invaded by several Italians and a lot of Japanese.

I think it was 2 weeks ago on Sunday, I had 6 female and 1 male Italian quail delivered from a kind lady in Telford. This will now be my Italian breeding group. Here are the photos. The females do not have names but the male is named Pedro (How Stereotypical! It was Pedro or Francessco)

 

 

Aren't they georgeous! One day after their arrival we had......

EGGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

And since then we've had all these............... and 7 more which were rather delicious! :D

 

Then there were the Japanese! Only 1 egg from these lot so far.

They are in all sorts of shapes and colours, I did have 11 but 3 have now moved on to my Friend Lesley. So left are I think 5 females and 3 males.

 

 

The above photo are the males (although we've had an egg from here) :D So we've narrowed it down to  3 males and removed the hen! You can see one of the 2 white ones in there.

 

Here is one of the hazelnut ones. Doesn't she look beautiful!

The Tesco Crew are doing well also. They are 8 weeks old this Tuesday, so it'll not be long until we get some eggs from these.

 

 

I think that's all of the small birds done.

 

WAIT the little buggars in my bedroom! They're doing ok now and are 3 weeks old tomorrow and Sunday.

Their favourite thing to do at the moment is to sunbathe on top of the feeder however only one can fit on at a time!

 

 

Awwww.

 

That's your lot.

 

Martin

Well yesterday the the Quail had their first real taste of freedom (apart from one of the hens who flies away every time I try to fill up their feeder) We had an old rabbit run at the side of the house which had been their for absolutely years! It was used in the summers gone-by to let the tortoises, rabbits, and guinea pigs run around, but since the invention of the rablu, we hadn't really a need for it. So I dug it out yesterday, and the quail came out from the rabbit hutch to the rabbit run, they prefer it in the run, they have been dustbathing and scratching around, it's so funny! I plan for them to use it most of the time now, but I shall continue to house them in the rabbit hutch at night, and whilst nobody else is around. We do have another larger rabbit run, which we can use for my new flock of quail which will be arriving on the 24th, there are 11 Japs and I am picking them up from a kind lady in Telford. Apparently they are laying 6 eggs a day between them, but there are 6 or 7 females and 4 or 5 males, which I am sure will taste nice! Anyway here are some pictures of my new free-range quail. Martin