My first egg!
Right now I have 16 quail. 7 roos, 9 hens. I’m selling 4 on Friday, 1 roo and 3 hens. That will leave me with 6 hens and 5 too many roos.
It sounds like I may have some people interested in buying birds. That gives me an excuse to hatch more!
I’m going to keep my silver male for certain and one falb fee male until they begin to fight with each other, then it will be good-bye to the falb fee roo. I hope the falb fee male lasts long enough to fertilize some eggs because I look forward to seeing what kinds of chicks I get with the set of birds that I’m keeping.
Love it! After I move I wouldn’t mind raising fair chicks and fair lambs. My staff thinks I’m crazy but I think it sounds like fun. Will depend on how much free time I have, of course, but since I’m incapable of staying still it’s worth a shot. Quail would be interesting too. 
You want quail. They’re quieter than chickens and so cute! You can still get eggs and meat from them too.
Congratulations!
The keeper covey got moved this morning. I hope the extra greenery will encourage them to feel comfortable enough to start laying.
Someone else needs to post here. I’m filling it up with my quail stuff. One of the hens above has started laying. I just got my 7th egg.
I’m planning on setting these tomorrow, along with 3 from my covey. The one that looks grey is actually a beautiful purple.
That’s a lot of tiny eggs!
I ordered 18. The shipper was more than generous with extras. One arrived cracked and leaking, so that one isn’t in the picture. Edit: One more looks like it has a check, which is a crack in the shell, but not in the membrane. Its chances aren’t good, but I’m going to set it anyways and candle again in 7 days.
I feel silly that it’s taken me all these years to find out, but local coffee shops give away their used grounds. Apparently this makes excellent compost, so I’ve been working some into my garden and compost bin. We’ll see how my winter garden does with the coffee and the two weeks that the quail were living in the bed.
I planted some spaghetti squash yesterday. I know it’s really late, but we’re getting some warm weather now, and usually have pretty mild winters, so I’m hoping to get some. If nothing else, I want to see how fertile the bed is after coffee and quail poop additions.
Edit: The soil certainly looks good.
Does anyone have any ideas on keeping hawks away? A cooper’s hawk has discovered my quail. It can’t get into the coop, but it’s scaring the poor birds.
Edit: I’ve ordered a life-sized owl statue to move around the yard, but I’m not sure if that will work.
I think I know a guy who raises quail to feed to his owls, but that’s kind of the opposite of helpful…
BB gun?
I doubt if you can get away with a .22.
I don’t know if I could hit anything with a BB gun…
Probably not.
An air pump bb gun such as the red rider rifle would probably be the best bet, and its a cheap air rifle.
Any risk of shooting anything that’s a protected species?
I’d try the Owl Statue first. It’s also passive, so no one has to hang out and watch the hutch all the time.
So far it seems to be working. I haven’t seen the haw since I put it out there, at least. Now I need to figure out how to keep my tomato marauder out of the yard. It’s probably a 'possum.
