Time to Feed The Quail

Today was our first day back at the quail breeding facility and Paula surely seemed glad to see us. After a lot of catching up we settled down to our now familiar daily general care chores. We basically take over the chores of taking the feeding dishes and water bottles out of each pen and cleaning and refilling them before returning them to the birds.

We have to do this without agitating the quail too much as they tend to flush. Since there is no where to go it means a lot of flapping and bouncing off netting. Fortunately, most of the older birds are pretty used to the activity and just move to the other end of the pen...except for a few, mostly males, who will occasionally rush in and peck your hand, sometimes even grabbing on. The young birds, this years chicks, are still rather skittish and prone to flight.

We are here a bit earlier than in past winters and there were still many breeding pairs in their own small pens. The males are more than a bit feisty and territorial during the breeding season and although the season is over, those hormones are just starting to wind down. Within the next few weeks Paula will be able to combine the pairs into larger pens and we will have fewer feeding dishes and water bottles to clean and fill each day. We probably have 50% more to do  than normal right now.

There are still a few chicks in the brooder cages, but they will also be soon transferred to their own larger pens and we will have brooder cages to clean and store for the winter.

Paula and Hannah are currently working on a large project to replace all of the older floor pens, which are actually modified rabbit hutches, with new ones mounted on wheeled beds. The older ones are wearing out and need replacement. Last year, it was thought that new metal pens could be designed and built, but it turns out that the rabbit hutch pens are more cost effective, even if they are replaced every few years.

The inexpensive design they have come up with is interesting and effective. A plastic covered plywood sheet just a bit larger than the dimensions of the hutch is mounted on a bed frame on casters. The hutch is then mounted on the plywood sheet. This allows the layout of the pens to be quite flexible within the buildings and makes for easier cleaning of the facility as well. Being raised off the floor they will be much easier to access for feeding birds and cleaning the pens.

There are 25 to build, so I expect we will be involved in this as well. Two of the other volunteers have been working on trimming the plywood to fit as the hutches are several inches smaller than a 4x8 sheet in both dimensions.

Tomorrow it is back the the quail, they don't take holidays.