Wanted Please - Harrogate / York / Leeds area

[ladyjulian]

Last week, My Beloved Cohab spent a couple of days in the garage with some old wood, making Chateau Quail. The only things she bought for this were hinges and screws - the rest is all skipped wood, courtesy of lots of our neighbours moving house, mending their roofs and chucking out old beds.

 

Here is Chateau Quail:

 

 

It's on three levels - we have 5 girls and a boy on the middle level, & we're picking up some day old chicks soon (they'll live in the house under a lamp until they're big enough to go outside into the other two levels).

 

Here are the current residents:

 

 

 

 

 

 

And after we had my parents, my bro & his gf over to meet them, here was the beginning of dinner:

 

 

[abwsco]

It looks great We want some more chickens but don't want to upset the apple cart with my ten, given that two from last January still aren't properly accepted, so keep pondering some quail.

[Lesley]

They look very happy!

[ladyjulian]

They do seem fairly happy.

 

In the short time we've had them...

 

They've given us 15 eggs

 

I've discovered that actually we have 4 hens and 2 cocks rather than 5:1 as thought

 

I've learned what a "foam ball" is (ick)

 

I've been quite impressed with their sheer capacity for making a mess (way more impressive on the mess:bodyweight ratio than the chooks!)

 

I've learned that quail can dustbath in an old shallow dog bowl full of sand

 

One of the quail has learned that impatient little quail who launch themselves at the hooman-with-food before the food is inside will find themselves unexpectedly on the ground amidst free ranging chickens

 

I've impressed myself with my quail-grabbing instinct

 

and

 

They sing at me if I whistle at them!! Hours of fun!

 

We're collecting six day-old chicks this evening. The heat lamp and box are ready for them and I've been mugging up on ideal temperatures for baby quail. There will be photos

[fluffyknickers]

VVV jealous as I would like quail!

 

Ok then whats a foam ball?!

[ladyjulian]

It's a little ball of foamy quail semen, like a little tiny foamy white poo, that the boys do when they become sexually mature (this is how we discovered that the Texan A&M 'hen' was in fact... not).

[fluffyknickers]

Oh lordy!

[Lesley]

See! - you really didn't want to know did you?

[Guest]

that's extremely professional looking!

[Martin B]

Your set up looks great!

 

It is very funny when you they foam, it shocket me when I first saw it too!

 

Martin