It begins...again
Okay…so… We did a thing.
Obviously we weren’t traumatised enough from the first round of quail. Spur of the moment, we bought four dozen quail eggs from a breeder in East Maitland; Fluffy Butt Farms. They were absolutely amazing, they even delivered the eggs to us the same day we contacted them! They were a much more reputable breeder than the first batch (some guy off Gumtree who posted them to us). We were a bit tight for time, as the quail eggs would be due for lockdown on the 18th October, and on the 20th we would be going to collect our chicken eggs from Nambucca Heads (which would need to go straight into the incubator when we got home).
So we also ended up buying a new incubator, which we will talk about more in “Incubating Round 3: Crested Cream Legbar Chickens”.
We discovered that 48 quail eggs was the maximum that would fit in our incubator, Janoel 48. The whole incubation period was seamless, and we feel like we learned a lot. There were 3 things we needed to change this time for hopefully more success. These three things were; leaving the hatched quail in the incubator for a longer amount of time, making the brooder a smaller area, and supplementing the water for “Magic Chick Water” for the first few days of life. Before lockdown, we once again candled the eggs and only 4 were not viable – 44 to hatch!
We decided to leave the hatched quail in the incubator for 12-24 hours, until there was a lull in hatching and they were nice and fluffy. Due to their smaller amount of yolk energy, they shouldn’t be left in for any longer than 36-48 hours. We halved the brooder area by blocking it off with a cardboard box and plugging up areas with towels. We made the Magic Chick Water on Thursday morning, expecting them to hatch on Friday (day 18). Spoiler alert: this round was so incredibly successful and we are just so happy.
We also had to move the 4 week old quail out of the brooder and into some temporary housing while the quail house is finished being built. We bought a simple coop from Bunnings – “The Cabin” and made a few adjustments such as a wire floor, new locks and castor wheels for easy moving. This will also be very useful later on as a quarantine if there are any ill quail, or for selective breeding of colours/temperaments.
Thursday 21/10/21 - Sunday 24/10/21
Unexpectedly the quail started hatching Thursday afternoon, a day early! Hearing the little chirping coming from the incubator brought back the sheer delight of new life coming into the world, but also complete and utter terror for what may lie ahead of us this time. However, with the changes in place we were more confident these little guys would make it through to adulthood.
Over the next 24 hours, we honestly lost count after about 20 had hatched. We started to transfer them to the brooder in batches of 10 (for ease of counting), until all the fluffiest and most active ones were out of the incubator.
By Friday evening, the hatching boom had slowed down, and we had about 28 (maybe?) in the brooder. Already we were noticing a difference in this second batch; no issues with curled feet and they had so much energy! This made us think it might have been a breeder issue as well.
Another few hatched Saturday and Sunday mornings, and the last 4 had curled toes. Two of those fixed it themselves within a few hours, and the other two needed their feet to be taped and stood upright in a glass to work their leg mucles.
By Sunday night, all of the quails were in the brooder and we had completely lost count. But once we decided that there were no more quails going to hatch (due to either viability issues or they would have curled feet/splay legs beyond fixing), we counted the un-hatched eggs and we had 36 hatched quail! We were gobsmacked to say the least. Now we just had to keep them alive…
The first few days of watching these healthy, happy, chirping little quail were absolute bliss. Then the smell started to catch up on us. With the original 3 quail, there was no smell and we were only changing the bedding every couple of days. Filling up the water and food daily with a small amount so that it didn’t get too filled up with poo and shavings and not too much wastage when we cleaned them every day. Now times that by twelve… The whole house basically smells like livestock, we are refilling the food and water twice if not three times a day and we have resorted to adding shavings daily and cleaning it out every couple of days. The compost is definitely getting full. But to hear the happy little chirping and watching them run around like fluffy popcorn is just the best thing ever.
We are also really glad we got such a variety of colours. The yellow ones will be English White or White Variants (white with little dark spots), the traditional Pharaoh colouring with the brown and black stripes, Italian colouring with the yellow and black stripes (will be some kind of white/gray spotted gorgeous things) and we even got a couple of Tuxedo colours! No Tibetan colouring this time, so we are happy we got a male Tibetan in the first round!
One Week On
All 36 quail have survived the week and are absolutely thriving. They are getting their adult feathers and we are so surprised by some of the colouring. One in particular; an Italian, has the most gorgous brown-gray-pastel thing going on and its honestly just stunning. We can’t wait to see what it looks like in adult-hood. The white ones are such a vibrant and pure white, it is so gorgeous to see.
There has been one little guy who has been worrying us a bit. It has a bit of a leaky butt (the rear and underside is always wet and stained with faeces), and has been walking a bit weird with its neck tucked in and legs fairly straight. After a bit of research, it was either constipation or something called Vent Gleet. We gave the little guy a daily or twice daily hot bath to clean off its butt and gave it a little stomach massage. We added some additions to the water for rehydration, probiotics and vitamins; Avi-LYTE and Avi-VITAL to help the little guy and prevent it from happening to the others. We also added a bit of apple cider vinegar for extra acidity which can help if it is indeed Vent Gleet.
We will keep a close eye on that little one for the next few days to see how it goes, otherwise it’ll be another trip to the vet perhaps.
