quail update

[kirkcudbright]

Recall that we got 10 mail-order bobwhite quail eggs, and divided them between the two broody bantam hens.

Millie is a mille-fleur d'Uccle, who likes to sit in one of the two nest boxes in the coop. Unfortunately, this is the same nest box that Penelope, the big Rhode Island Red, insists on laying her eggs in. We tried to move Millie to the other nest box, but she abandoned the eggs for her familiar nest. What with one thing and another, five eggs became four, then three, then (mysteriously) two. OTOH, there haven't been any of the big RI eggs for a few days, and Penelope's usually a very consistent layer, so Millie may have been eating the big intruder eggs.

Thistle is a white silkie, who had already taken to nesting outside the coop, in the enclosed run. Her five eggs have only shrunk to four, and she's been positively devoted to them, sitting 24x7.

We candled all the eggs tonight. (Shine as bright a light as you can get through the shell, and look for signs of organization and life. Veins and opaque masses are good, especially if they're moving.) One of Thistle's four is either infertile, or otherwise failed to develop. OTOH, her three remaining eggs are more developed than Millie's, probably due to more devoted brooding.

So we should get five chicks, with Thistle's three possibly this weekend, and Millie's two several days behind.

Comments

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

I found this really interesting and a little bit disturbing (chickens eating competitor's eggs? Eesh. Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised at what I see in the world of humans).

Here's hoping that the chicks make it in this chick-eat-chick world.

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

There's a variety of bird (I forget which) that will push the eggs out of a nest, and then lay their eggs in the nest, leaving eggs for the original occupant to raise.

[candle-light.livejournal.com]

Both cowbirds & cuckoos will lay their eggs in another birds nest. Sometimes the earlier hatching interlopers push out the original eggs or the smaller hatchlings. Since the interlopers are bigger they tend to also get most of the food brought by the surrogate parent.

[kirkcudbright.livejournal.com]

OTOH: "Host parents may sometimes notice the cowbird egg. Different species react in different ways. Gray Catbirds destroy the egg by pecking it. Some species may simply build a new layer over the bottom of the original nest. Brown-headed cowbird nestlings are sometimes expelled from the nest. This rejection, however, may trigger a "mafia" reaction, according to a study by the Florida Museum of Natural History. When the parasitic egg was removed from the host nest, the cowbird returned to ransack the nest about 56% of the time. In addition, the cowbird also destroyed nests in a type of "farming behavior" to force the hosts to build new ones. The cowbirds then laid their eggs in the new nests 85% of the time."

(from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown-headed_Cowbird))

[kirkcudbright.livejournal.com]

One of the things we're supposed to feed the baby quail chickies is chopped hard-boiled egg.

Chickens are omnivorous and opportunistic feeders. They will gladly eat broken eggs, they have been known (in general, not our girls in particular) to kill and eat mice that wander into their yards, and there have even been reports of cannibalism (although I suspect that's more an issue in large, dense, stressed productions flocks).

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

This reminds me. Would Kylie like to come over and see some baby rats? We have two litters of three week old babies that are large enough to play with (or watch playing) and a litter that was born last night.