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We keep a selection of
Quail including standard or laying Coturnix, Fawn, Italian, White and Brown
Range Quail. Our daughter also has a
flock of around 15 Chinese painted Quail that are purely ornamental.
These are
just a few of our birds in their different colours.
We do our best to keep our birds in good
condition by regular cleaning and changing the woodchip that makes up
the base of their outside pens, they are only fed the
best fully balanced, GM free feed, all of the specially produced ingredients are fully traceable
and comply with UFAS compound feeds cert No. 111.
They are given as
much freedom as possible, and have full access to sheltered, out door pens all year
round, they are only confined to inside for selective breeding, and then this is
in large breeding cages, normally with 1 cock to 2 hens so they have
plenty of room and are able to mate freely thus ensuring the best
possible egg fertility.
We generally hatch out
several broods each year to replace stock and to introduce new lines and usually
achieve
excellent hatch rates from our own eggs, this winter saw an average of 82%,
Spring & Summer should be even better.
Eggs bought in through the post do not usually fair as well, but this is
only to be expected as who knows what happens to them once in the post
van, the great thing about Quail eggs is that they are not that
expensive when compared to some Chicken eggs that you can buy for
incubation and get posted, so, while it's not nice it doesn't hurt as
much when some fail to develop in the shell or just don't quite make it
to the hatching stage. If you are
just starting with Quail or would like to start, and need some tips on
how to incubate their eggs have a look at the incubation page, you may
find some of the information useful, there is a lot of advise out there,
all different I might add, but this method seems to work for us. Of
course if you don't fancy trawling the net for info but do like a good read, probably two of the best books on the
subject are katie Thear's 'Keeping Quail' & 'Incubation' we found
these a great source of information when we first started and its always
nice to have something to hand to refer to, both of these invaluable
books, and some others, can be found in our 'Country Books' shop or by clicking on the images below.
Mixed hatching eggs are normally available
all year round.
Click
here to find out more
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