Jumbo Quail are outdoor ready!

A little while back I did a video on our Jumbo Quail we started to hatch. It was a bit of a sad hatch with only 18 eggs hatching over all out of 120, and 16 surviving to 4 weeks. I was very disappointed in how things turned out with this hatch, but the farm who sold me the eggs have agreed to replace my eggs at a reduced price, and that will be our next order here in the near future.

What went wrong?

The Quail Farm that sold me the eggs and I had emailed each other back and forth and even though I had treated the eggs correctly in the incubator, the culprit was more than likely an error I made before they were placed in the incubator. When they arrived via USPS, my first instinct was to get them into the incubator as quickly as possible. What I had discovered from the Quail Farm was you need to allow the eggs to sit at room temp for 24 hours after you receive them. Doing so allows the air sacs to stabilize after their trip in a mail trick. That one error is what had more than likely caused my hatch rate to be so low.

BUT, There is good news!

Out of the 16 survivors, 11 of them are female! That means that once they start producing, I will be able to hatch 50+ eggs of my own per incubator, and if I purchase a 3 more incubators, I could be hatching 50+ eggs a week constantly! Thats a whole lot of quail! My Previous hatch rates were 50%-%60, so a couple of dozen birds plus eggs each week would be plenty for just the two of us. It seems stretching my numbers slightly over a period of time instead of trying to have huge hatches all at once is a more manageable way to go.

We have one special one out of the bunch. She is the same pattern as the rest, but is a much lighter brown than the rest of the ladies. You can see her here in the middle.

One thing I love most about raising this style of bird is how easy it is to determine boys from girls, and usually as soon as 4 weeks! Girls have black dots on their chest, and the boys have a rusty brown chest.

These birds are only a few days over 4 weeks, and about half way grown. They are already bigger than the birds I traded with @papa-pepper just a couple of weeks ago. That means a bigger meat source!

The Jumbo Brown Coturnix quail are going to be a fantastic addition to the homestead for income and a source of food. Between these and the rabbits I traded with @papa-pepper our homestead has a wonderful and healthy food source for all year round! A special thanks goes to @freedompoint for the new fancy cage they are living in. Next steps are to get a gravity fed watering system and they will be set! Thanks for stopping by today and Steem on!