Coturnix Quail are our latest endeavor. These little birds are beautiful, and have (to me) more personality than chickens. A couple of months ago we purchased ten quail chicks from an ad on Craigslist. I picked up the tiny, adorable chicks on a Friday afternoon in mid-March and put them in our homemade brooder. Over the period of a few weeks they grew rapidly while Josh built them a permanent home in the barn. They are now housed, seemingly happily, in their new home and producing eggs by the dozens!
We have 7 hens and 3 roosters of various varieties: two Texas A&M type, five Pharaoh, and three Tibetan type. At least two of the Pharaohs are roosters, but not quite sure which is the third rooster. The shells are a beautiful speckled brown - from tiny specks to large spots - on the outside and a creamy white/bluish color on the inside. The tiny eggs are a pale lemon color with the thick white typical of very fresh eggs. They have an extremely high nutritional value, packing in more nutrition per egg than two regular chicken eggs combined.
Quail eggs are also rumored to be safe for people that can't eat chicken eggs. So far, this seems to be true. I got over my "we're eating our babies!" qualms and had some for breakfast. With chicken eggs I would have been very sorry within minutes, but so far I am quite happy with the results from the quail eggs. Pretty much taste like eggs, but as our daughter put it, "they have a taste of their own too".
We also have about twenty eggs in an incubator that should start hatching in the next 10 days or so, if they are going to at all. They are our very first eggs, so I think it is debatable whether or not our little roosters had gotten their job quite figured out at the time. Hoping that we at least get a few so we can add to our little flock. But if these don't hatch, we'll have plenty more to try in a matter of days.
All the hens are laying now - every day! So the eggs are accumulating quickly. A friend took a dozen, and I am hoping we will be able to sell them on a regular basis as we are getting 14 every two days. I am going to have to get creative with marketing these until we get a following.
Next on the agenda is building a portable run that we will be able to put them in for a few hours so they can get some nice time outdoors every day when the weather is good.
In other news, March brought us 5 1/4 inches of rain, and April brought 3 inches. We're still pretty soggy and already at 1 1/4 inches for May. Hoping this week continues to be sunny and we can get the garden worked up and get planting! I have been considering putting in raised beds so we can get lettuces and such planted a lot earlier. I know of people that are already eating fresh lettuce from their gardens! Looking forward to the plant sale next weekend so I can pick up some good organic veggie and herb starts. I so miss fresh tomatoes and other veggies. Working away from home last year meant our garden didn't get planted.
