Home Farmer magazine article on quail

I have been privileged recently to have a piece of writing about keeping quail published in Homer Farmer magazine, a publication I have been following and reading for some time.  I find it has some great tips, information and recipies on all sorts of topics and projects that anyone with a smallholding or a backgarden can benefit from.

My article looked at the basics of keeping quail, and I have been very fortunate that the Home Farmer team have allowed me to publish the link to my article on my website and blog.  So you get to read part of the magazine FOR FREE!

Here is the link, have a read, you might just find yourself planning to keep quail and signing up to a subscription of home farmer.

Quail article link to Home Farmer quail article by Andrew Homer

Thanks for reading.

Quail hatching - the final stages

It's easy to get complacent, just pop the incubator on, buy some eggs and away you go.  I am usually good a planning my hatching and incubation periods, allowing for the postage time and the 24 hours of resting the eggs before setting.

Some how with my quail hatch I have managed to miss quite a significant issue.  Power cuts.
I would normally  be unlucky to have a power cut during our peak hatching season and the loss of power to an incubator for an hour or so would not be a total disaster and spell the end of the hatch.  If fact if the incubator is left alone and closed I'm sure the eggs will be unaffected.

Its not ideal but you have to work with what you have got. After all a hen naturally leaves her eggs daily for 30-45 minutes to eat drink and "clear out".

My issue is that we have building work on going and the power has been off for an hour the last couple of days.  School boy error but one I can not change.
 

The quail eggs are now into the last 3 days in the incubator.  Rather than risking further heat and humidity loss by candeling, I left well alone. I hope it helps and I will find out soon.

 

As with chicken eggs I have stopped turning and added more water to increase humidity ready for hatching.  The humidity should increase to around 70-75% now with the extra water and a slight reduction in temperature.

I hope to hatch a reasonable number of females.  I have massive demand from my three young boys, who will eat 6 quail eggs each as a snack.  They are lucky as with eggs priced at £2.85 locally for 12, we would not be buying them.

I will be sure to update once hatching is complete with photos of the new tiny chicks.

Thanks for reading.

Quail hatching

So off I go again. The incubator is set and the 21 quail eggs are in position.   They are the courtnix type, a mix of white, light/golden, dark brown and the Japanese colour type.

Most incubators these days will allow you to hatch different breeds and my corti 25, which has proved very useful hatching chickens, states that it will incubate 50 quail eggs at a time.

The incubation period for quail is shorter that hens as 18 days, so to make sure I don't miss candling and turning off the auto turning mechanism I have made a calendar note.

Some suggest the humidity and temperature is slightly different to incubation hen eggs, but the reference books I am using require similar levels to chicken eggs.  I'm currently running at 37.5 degrees c and 54% humidity well within the ranges suggested.

You can candle quail eggs at 7 days as you do with all other egg types but the markings on the eggs can make this difficult, so I use my brinsea candler rather than a torch that has worked on some of my hens eggs.

This is my first time hatching quail eggs, hopefully not the last, but having been through the process several times before with hens I am feeling relatively relaxed about the whole process.
I have had a couple of enquiries locally for quail in particular males which is a little unusual but something that will be beneficial as no doubt there will be a significant number of males hatched.

My own quail eggs have been hatching out at 60-70% of all eggs set by local hatchers.  Ok but not the best hatch rate.  I did have 9 females to 2 males and this ratio may have been a little high with some suggesting 1 male to 3 female.  With the loss of a couple of females recently it has improved the ratio and I hope the will have a positive effect on the hatch /fertility rate.

I have recently written a piece for Homer Farmer on keeping quail, published in their September 2013 edition.  Whole books tackle the subject so I'm not suggesting this will tell you everything, in fact it is just a snippet of information.  But just as if you are going to keep chickens most important is to ensure you can provide the right type of continuous care and attention and to understand the commitment you are taking on, in addition talk to your neighbours about keeping them, especially if you keep the males.

Thanks for reading.

Quail Photos

I thought I would take the opportunity to introduce my Quail.  They are the Japanese Common quail.  Great at laying up to 300 eggs per year given the right conditions.

They are lovely little things, they chirp quietly and the males have a lovely call.  It actually fills my back garden with some lovely bird calls adding to the wild birds already out there.

I had an unfortunate start and lost one female with a prolapse and egg bound issue.  We managed to remove the egg down the vets but there was nothing we could do.  I do however still have 10 healthy birds.
Considering the cold weather and their recently move, we have done quite well with 12 eggs so far.

I think the only way to get them laying more is to use a heat lamp to increase the temperature. I will think a little longer before doing this.

I am planning to have eggs to hatch and eggs for sale to eat as soon as production increases.  I have the boxes and have designed my own label to ensure I comply with regulations.  

I will write a little more a out what is required shortly but thought you may enjoy some of the photos I have managed to take.

Quail & hatching update

I have been working on a website for my little poultry adventure.  I would love some feed back on the temporary site at www.andrewspurebreedpoultry.co.uk  There will of course be more information in the full site but at least there is a basis to work from.

If you have read my blog before you will probably know I am little obsessed with chickens and have been keeping them in my back garden for four years.  I have recently ventured into the world of quail keeping.  The Japanese quail arrived on Sunday 3rd February.  9 females and 2 male.

They seem to have settled well into their coop/ aviary.  Although I am surprised how startled they are when I walk up to them.  As explained in the books I have read, they fly directly upwards when scared and usually smack their head off the ceiling of the coop.  Fortunately it is a plastic tray about their head, so I hope it will cause little damage to them.  It does however concern me they do it so frequently, and I think it would be useful if someone could design or breed into the quail some form of helmet device!

They are lovely little birds and have produced 8 eggs already in less than 2 days, however temperatures have dropped and the winds have picked up, so I expect egg production to be limited in the next few days.

My recent attempt at hatching silver laced Wyandottes was a failure.  2 of the eggs were fertile but died at around 16-18 days I think.  I think the humidity may have been too high.  Something I will be keeping a close eye on when I set my next batch of eggs in the next week or so.

Keep tuned in to find out what I will be hatching next using a dry incubating method. ;-)

Thanks for reading