Quail Experiment Ended

So the quail experiment ended last week - the last quail, the male, expired quietly while I was at work.

On the whole, I was moderately pleased with the whole thing.  Once worked out the kinks with living quarters - the biggest challenge of them all as it turned out, until we got things more or less settled - the whole thing worked okay.

What would I do differently?  Single biggest thing is to have an actually housing area.  The final incarnation - a 50 gallon Rubbermaid with a screen on top - worked okay in the garage but it would have been ideal to have something outside (quail can't be trusted to come back to the coop at night).  But, as we found out, outside here might not be the best thing in the world - raccoons and possums abound.

Was it a wash financially?  Not sure.  We had eggs for about a year which probably did for me but not for our family - we would need a bushel more quail to make that happen.  My best was 3 eggs a days, which make about 1 hens egg.  By that math, we would have need 36 eggs to get to a dozen.  And with the feed and bedding I am pretty sure we lost money.

Bright side?  Quail are eminently doable for the homesteader.  They are far easier to manage in the smaller urban environments (and chasing a quail around, while perhaps a bit exhausting, is ultimately easier than trying to grab a chicken).  They are compact.  They do supply protein (both in the egg and, I suppose, the bird form).  And if you get the right kind (Not Texas A&M for sure), they are pretty noiseless.

Will we have a go again?  Not right away I think - the housing thing is an issue.  But it is one more thing to file away under the "There are possibilities and they are feasible" for urban homesteading.

The Mystery of The Disappearing Quail

Fortyfive Nation, I have a mystery for you.

The Situation: I go outside this morning to feed the quail as I always do.  I open the swing down door and put in the ration of meal worms.  No-one rushes out but that is not particularly surprising as it was a little earlier than I usually go out and so darker.  No big deal.

For some reason I come out later before I eat breakfast to check.  Still no-one has swarmed the meal worms.  I open the cage up.  Inside I find one traumatized quail with injuries and two quail that are missing completely.  The latch was closed.  There are feathers scattered around but very little blood indicating an attack.  What happened?

1)  Someone thieved two quail and left the third.  Possible, but does not explain the injuries on the third quail.

2)  A predator (I'm thinking a raccoon) - Possible, although the lack of blood and the fact the latch was replaced in position makes me wonder.

3)  Three...I got nothing.

Quail Three is in the converted hamster cage recovering in the air conditioning.  I would give its chances at not that great, except these quail have really surprised me as to their ability to recover from injuries.  Here's hoping.

Two lessons for those that seek to prepare for emergencies:

1)  Local wildlife will become an issue, especially as the easy pickings (otherwise known as garbage) disappear.  Imagine rabbits in your garden but much worse.

2)  Two legged wildlife can also become an issue.  Be prepared to disguise, conceal, or even more actively protect (as in moving closer to the house, perhaps even in your garage) that which is valuable.

Quail Relocation Facilities

With recent onset of potential rat attacks, I have had to change the quail's living quarters.  This is where they currently are:

It is a 50 gallon storage tub from my one of my local Big Box Home stores.  (In case you were wondering, they do have water.  I had just pulled it out for the purposes of moving them prior to this picture).

Originally this was my intent for where they were going to live (I had seen quail being maintained in such a tub inside), prior to securing a rabbit cage for them to live in outside.  However, as I think the attack came from a rat getting between the cage and the bed pan and then biting up, into the tub the went until I could bring the rodent issue under control.

I think one of the big advantages in doing it this way is that the quail are not constantly running around on the wire flooring of the cage but instead on the shavings.  It also allows them to burrow into the shavings - and quail love to burrow in, as we have found out!  It also makes them super easy to cover up for the night with little or no concern about attack (yes, I am sure a rat could chew their way in there, but I have put things around to otherwise engage their attention).  This is also a fairly portable set-up - for this picture, I merely put the lid on and moved them from the garage workbench to outside.

The disadvantages, so far as I can see, is that you have to change them more often than I did, both because of their own "business" as well as the fact that they tend to spill the water, which makes it damp - and as a result the smell builds quicker (as you can see, there are holes in the side of the handle, which helps when I button them up for the night.  Also, right now I only have the cover so light is a bit of an issue - I crack the cover during the day but cannot do this too much as they have a tendency to fly out.  Perhaps a screen during the day could solve this issue and would be a fairly cheap solution.

How long will this go on?  I am not sure.  I will be honest in that I sort of like this set up better on the whole as the quail seem to be happier if for no other reason that their feet are not on the hardwire all the time and they can burrow.  I will continue to monitor see how they are doing.  

I have to say on the whole, having quail to this point has been a pleasant experience (with the unfortunate exception that we have not gotten any eggs yet!).  They are small, they are quiet, they are easy to handle, they are fairly cheap to maintain (a bag of feed goes a long way - besides that, I am just paying for wood shavings now).  From what I read, they are easy to skin and eat were you to do that (which these will never have to face - they are pets of Nighean Dhonn and will enjoy privileged status all their lives).  In a great many ways, they see very apt indeed for not only small holdings in general but small urban holdings in particular.