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quail! (not quayle)
Jul. 8th, 2007 10:58 pm(This should have been at least two posts, but WTF, I'm lame...)
Starting last summer, at least two of our bantam hens have been going broody during the summer. This year, it's been pretty much just the d'Uccle and the Silkie, but pretty much full-time - sitting in the nest box, even on the extra-jumbo Rhode Island Red eggs, even when the eggs were taken away from them.
We can't have a rooster (can't even legally have chickens where we live - ssh!), but we'd been talking since last summer about getting quail eggs for the broodies to hatch - quail being small, inconspicuous, and not growing up into chicken roosters, which would make their presence known pretty quickly. So we (Francie, really) ordered bobwhite quail eggs a few weeks ago from McMurray. They finally came on 6/28, and I immediately put them under the hens, and then looked up the gestation - and found out that they're likely to hatch...in the middle of Baitcon.
We candled the eggs today (as best we could, with a mini-maglite), and there are definitely active embryos (in the eggs we checked (4 of 7 remaining (out of 10 shipped (out of 7 ordered)))). So I'm kind of conflicted about the Baitcon thing - I definitely want to go and see people (in general and in particular, y'know), but I need to get someone to look after the menagerie who's willing to deal with (and whom I'm willing to let deal with) the possibility of tiny baby chickies.
Starting last summer, at least two of our bantam hens have been going broody during the summer. This year, it's been pretty much just the d'Uccle and the Silkie, but pretty much full-time - sitting in the nest box, even on the extra-jumbo Rhode Island Red eggs, even when the eggs were taken away from them.
We can't have a rooster (can't even legally have chickens where we live - ssh!), but we'd been talking since last summer about getting quail eggs for the broodies to hatch - quail being small, inconspicuous, and not growing up into chicken roosters, which would make their presence known pretty quickly. So we (Francie, really) ordered bobwhite quail eggs a few weeks ago from McMurray. They finally came on 6/28, and I immediately put them under the hens, and then looked up the gestation - and found out that they're likely to hatch...in the middle of Baitcon.
We candled the eggs today (as best we could, with a mini-maglite), and there are definitely active embryos (in the eggs we checked (4 of 7 remaining (out of 10 shipped (out of 7 ordered)))). So I'm kind of conflicted about the Baitcon thing - I definitely want to go and see people (in general and in particular, y'know), but I need to get someone to look after the menagerie who's willing to deal with (and whom I'm willing to let deal with) the possibility of tiny baby chickies.
