July 30th 2012- The Quails Are Born

You would not believe the excitement that rushed through me this morning as I peered over into our incubator to find not one, not two but six baby quail chicks that had hatched during the night. It was only 17 days ago when we started incubating our eggs. We had put thirty-one eggs in and until last night there had been no sings of life whatsoever. Last night however, something amazing happened. Out the blue, a few of our eggs started to wobble and ever so often I would hear the casual peep. That was the moment when I knew we had done it right. We were going to be quail parents!!! Anyway, 10 hours after our first quail poked his head out of his shell we have now 12 baby quail chicks (and counting). Some are very busy and active whereas others still can't figure out why their head is so heavy and prefer laying on the ground and getting trampled on by their brothers and sisters.

Here are a couple pictures I took earlier this morning:

Me and My Quail

A Male Of A Quail

Here is a photo of our male.

Its fairly easy to tell the difference between male and female quails because  of their colour markings and body size. The male has a distinct rusty, reddish chest where as the female has a white chest with mottled black. Females are generally heavier with a broader chest and the males have a more slim appearance. Males also have foamy poop a distinct call, and are often running around attempting to mate with females, which lay the eggs. 

Here is a very detailed diagram to show the differences between the male and female quail and below is a real-life photo camparrison.

Female (left)                  Male (right)

There isn't anything in the world that our male quail loves more than his ladies and to prove this, I took a short video clip of what exactly happens when our male is separated from his girls. Watch him run around franticly in our yard as he crows on, hoping that one of his ladies will hear his mating call.

A 'KEEN' QUAIL

PERFECT FIT (FOR A QUAIL)

I'M SUCH A POSER!

ENOUGH WITH THE PHOTOS ALREADY!!!

In The Sandbox

A lot goes down in this sandbox...

When the days get longer and the weather gets hotter just like us humans, our normally very active quail don't feel like doing much. They would much rather take a relaxing sand bath than waddle around in the boiling hot sun. So, why not???  Below I have charted my observations of the activity level in the sandbox over a three day period. 

 DAY 1-Our quail lay peacefully basking in sun, shifting ever so often. 

DAY 2- Our quail lay peacefully basking in the sun, shifting ever so often when another one of our quail casually walks by and casually asks when he can have a turn in the sandbox.

DAY 3-Our quail lay peacefully basking in the sun, shifting ever so often when a mysterious looking rock  egg appears in their sandbox. Hmm... I wonder how that got there???

                                                                             

funny quail pics

THE  AWKWARD MOMENT WHEN SOMEONE IS TAKING A PICTURE OF YOU WHEN YOU ARE EATING...

 HEY WAIT THATS NOT A QUAIL...

SUCH A BIG WORLD FOR SUCH A SMALL QUAIL

 WHERE DO YOU THINK YOUR GOING?!?

BATH TIME WITH DADDY!

Live Your Best Life (quail)

How do you give your urban quail the life he/she deserves??? I'd start with trying to make their life as your pet the most rural as possible. By trying to make "real wildlife scenarios" for your pet you will help them to gain independence and learn important survival tactics. Here are five useful tips.

1.Make sure your quail coop is roomy. - The last thing that you want is for your quail to become territorial. The recommended space requirements are 1 sq. ft. per bird. However, this figure is an estimate and depends entirely on the birds themselves.

2.Give your quail a chance to explore the great outdoors.- We also have an alternate pen for our quail so that when the weather is nice, we can let them roam around freely on the grass without having to worry about predators.

3. Let them find their own food.- Just like chickens quail love to eat just about anything they can fins in the grass! Pecking for worms, wood bugs and even ants keeps your quail active and alert plus it provides them with protein. 

4. Make their living environment as rural as possible.-Insert branches, rocks  and even sand into your quail's environment to make them feel "at home".  

5. Don't over handle them.-I know how tempting it is to want to play with your quail however there is a limit. Next time, trying observing them from afar instead of cuddling them to death! If you sit and watch them long enough you may get to see some of their most funny and unusual behaviour!!  

Hide and Seek

I remember looking into the quail cage one morning and freaking out not knowing where our sixth quail had gone. Luckily  it only took me a few seconds to realize that our sixth quail (see photo above) was harmlessly hiding in a pile of branches that we had put in their cage a few days before. It is common quail nature to want to hide. Being under the branches keeps them cool plus they can easily camouflage  to protect themselves from predators. 

Quail Egg Cuisine

Pure brown quail eggs are hard to come by so we were very excited when we came by this one in our quail coop. The quail egg is significantly smaller than chicken egg (about 5 quail eggs equal one large chicken egg). Did you know that quail eggs can be wonderful alternative to chicken eggs? The shells are beautiful, and the smaller egg and delicately-flavoured yolk open up new avenues of creativity. We have already enjoyed our eggs scrambled, fried and we have even baked some home-made quail egg cookies. 










Click here to find some delicious quail egg inspired recipes plus learn about all of the nutritional benefits of the quail egg.   

The Urban Quail

Our quail are quite the adventurous bunch. They love exploring city and playing in the dirt at their favourite  playground. Of coarse the urban quail has to be careful for there are predators all around such as crows, coyotes and toddlers with grubby hands.  

Groups of Eggs

Here are our eggs that we have collected over
one week's time.

Notice the five different groupings of eggs. We have five different groupings for five different females. Each group of eggs has different characteristics than the next. As you can see, some of our females lay very frequently where as others only lay every once in a while.Eggs come in speckled, dark brown or light brown however, they can also be pure brown or pure white.







Here is the real scientific groupings that I just found online...I was pretty close :D

The Eggs

                   We usually get anywhere from 1-5 eggs per day. Today we got five ( I was so proud)!

We love our quail! And I’m pretty sure they love us too!

                                        We own six full grown coturnix quail (one male and five females)!