More Time With the Quails

It is getting colder at night, into the teens and low 20s, and it was well below freezing at sunrise. Today we were off to work with Paula at the quail facility in Arivaca.

We still had old truck #32, the Ford F-250 with 92,000 hard miles on it. Trucks make their way from senior staff to junior staff and finally to volunteers (you can well imagine its condition). It rattled and creaked back to Arivaca. Paula was happy to see us (I'm not sure that the quails were, they are a bit more circumspect). She doesn't get much help and is alone at the quail facility most of the time (except for the 800 quail). Emily helps out one day a week, and now we do as well.

We still are not sure if we will always do it, but we know that Dan and Paula really want us to help. It depends somewhat on Ellen's allergies.

Paula is dedicated to her birds and has to care for them on almost a shoestring. She is constantly improvising to provide some additional enrichment for the birds who have a pretty boring environment. She makes houses and pecking platforms out of discarded cardboard boxes and packaging and brings in bits of vegetables so they have a little something extra beyond their dry feed. We brought over a leftover broccoli stem, which she was happy to get to turn into an additional treat for some of the weaker birds.

We did some new chores this week. Paula is setting up new brooder cages for the quail and beginning to shift some of the older quail around. This is in preparation for moving this year's chicks out of the breeding building to the main living quarters (for the quail that is) and spreading them out into more cages. Currently the chicks, which are almost adult size, are pretty crowded and she would like to give them a bit more room.

In addition to checking and feeding the older birds, a daily task, we also helped set up a new brooder array. Ellen took on making cardboard shelters that go into the cages to give the birds a bit of a place to get away and also cardboard platforms that they peck at which also makes it a little more comfortable as they can get off the wire floor of their cage. After finishing with the older birds, I helped out by putting liners in the new brooders and the houses Ellen had made. There was a bit of a problem with some of the wire floors falling, so I came up with a way to wire them in place.

The brooder was just about ready for birds by the time we had finished. I'm sure the new residents will have moved in by the time we see them next.

We also replaced cardboard platforms in the existing cages for both the older birds and the chicks. I had my first escapee with the older birds. It involved "Killer". I don't think I've mentioned Killer before; he is a rather unusual quail. He got the name because he didn't get along with other males and was pretty dominant (you know the type). He was placed in a cage with several other females and seems to get along with them. Unlike other quail, who move to the other end of their cage when you come near, Killer comes to you. If you have the side of the cage open to get at something in the brooder, he will hop up on it and sometimes peck on a hand.

I was changing the cardboard in Killer's cage. This meant pulling down the hinged end of the cage and reaching in to get the old piece out and put the new one in. This section of cage is about three feet long and six inches high. Killer, of course, tried to hop up on the pulled down section, but I was ready for him. As I went to gently direct him back into the cage, however, one of his cage mates hopped up at the other end and out onto the floor. Oh no, an escaped bird, a volunteer's nightmare ... only eight hundred or so of these endangered birds left on the planet and I let one go!

I pushed Killer back in and let the side close (they are spring-loaded), but I now had a quail wandering around on the floor. This is not ideal. You are supposed to be gentle, quiet and smooth when walking around the cages, but it was a bit hard to achieve at this juncture. I found a net and slowly approached the bird who, fortunately, was just standing there. It seems when they escape they don't know what to do next. It took a couple of tries, but I got the net over her and picked her up and deposited her back in her cage. Killer, of course, tried to come out as I put her in (perhaps chuckling to have a newbie to torment).

Both Ellen and I got a chance to work with the chicks for the first time, replacing cardboard in their cages. Many of them are pretty skittish, but some just ignore you. There were several cages where I could slide the cardboard in and they would walk on it as I was sliding it along the bottom of the cage. As we left for the day, the background noise was a symphony of pecking and scratching the new cardboard.

We spent our whole work day there, leaving after 2 p.m., too late for Gadsen Coffee, but with time to stop at Arivaca Mercantile and gas up old #32 and buy milk. We drove back to the main refuge, about 20 miles or so, pretty tired but we still had to do laundry to wash the bird dander off all the clothes we had been wearing to try to avoid contaminating Speedy.