Ark malarky!

The birds living in my large ark/run have developed a habit of digging a hole in the lawn! They only ever dig one hole, the majority of the time it's not by the edge so they're not digging to escape. Sometimes they'll then lay eggs in the hole other times the just seem to rest in it.

It's all very frustrating as it means I'm having to move the ark almost daily now just to keep the grass in good condition.

I've experimented to see if it was just one particular covey but no they all do it. The other ark doesn't suffer from digging so I'm at somewhat at a loss as to why they're doing it..... Diana certainly isn't overly impressed with her lawn starting to sprout craters!

All this has confirmed that this ark will be up for sale shortly, probably at the end of the month. It really is a great ark or rabbit run and I'd like to keep it but that's not a practical option so it must go.

Eggs.

I've (finally) hit my stride with eggs on Ebay!!

I'm now offering blown, eating and hatching/incubation eggs on Ebay, naturally they're not all the same eggs ~ I've not studied biology but I don't think even the best incubator will get a blown egg to hatch.....

Prices start at £0.99 for 12.

If you're interested look for me as ewrallying.

GREAT NEWS!!

Diana and I are expecting our second child on the 5th of February 2010!

We're both over the moon and Mark is looking forward to being an older brother. It does, however, mean that any plans I had for expanding my quail population are pretty much on hold. It also means that very shortly my newly acquired ark/hutch/run will be sold off. Both the birds and I think its fantastic but it just takes up too much space on either of our lawns so (sadly) it has to go. When it finally makes its way onto Ebay I'll post on here for those of you that follow this blog (I'm shocked that there are people out there who follow my ravings!!) can at least have a look at it first.

Numbers reducing.

My 23 quail are now down to 16 as I've sold off a pair of range and a covey of 5 normal birds. Thus I now have 1 normal/wild pattern male, 1 golden, 1 tuxedo and 1 white. My females include 1 cinnamon, 2 fawn and 1 golden. I'm hoping to get a broader colour spectrum of females but time is flashing by so fast that I don't expect to be altering my coveys much, if at all, between now and Spring 2010!!

I've never been a big fan of the range marking, unlike most people, but I somehow always end up with a couple! Now that I have purged my breeding stock of them again I might try and incubate a R-COM 20 full of eggs once before the winter draws in (did we have a summer??), although other factors (mentioned in another post) make that highly doubtful.....

New birds.

Mark (my son) and I took a nice gentle trip down the M40 on Saturday to collect 17 quail (13 females and 4 males). I'm now back up to 23 quail in total although I have a pair of range birds that are for sale plus I'm looking for a couple more females.

I now have a couple more non-standard (wild) coloured birds including a white male, a golden male, a pied male, a range male, a couple of fawn females and a cinnamon female.

Once I have added a couple of more birds and sold a few of the normal and range birds I'll start a breeding programme.

Feeding time.

As a treat I put a bowl full of live meal worms into each quail covey. Once the birds discovered that the meal worms were edible a feeding frenzy ensued and the bowls were emptied post haste!
I supplement the Marriages Quail pellets (which I feed my birds with daily) with CJ No Mess Seed Mix, a wild bird seed mix from CJ Wildbird foods {link}. It contains a mixture of kibbled maize, yellow millet, sunflower hearts and pinhead oatmeal and is well received by the quail! Every other day they also get some grass and dandelion plus a couple of sprigs of chives too. The quail tend to just peck at the chives rather than eat them, still it keeps them occupied which has to be a good thing!

New housing.

Above is a picture (from Ebay) of the latest addition to my quail housing. Collected last night it now sits on my left lawn awaiting a covey or two of quail! Its dimensions are 188cm x 105cm x 47cm (Length x Width x Height) so it offers ample room but should stop any injuries if the covey starts boinking.
I have plenty of quail who would really love to move into the new run but I might save it for my next hatchlings. Choices, choices.....

Trio for sale.

At the risk of reducing my daily supply of eggs even further I have a trio of Japanese quail (2 females and male) for sale. These wild pattern birds are 4½ months old and they have been together since hatching, the females are laying an egg a day each. I'm looking for around £12.00-£13.00 for the trio.

Reduction in numbers.

Through a strange set of circumstances I have reduced the number of Japanese quail I have down to 11 in 3 coveys.

All the birds I have now are ones hatched by me and all are the wild pattern except 1 golden female and 1 cinnamon female.

With so few birds my egg production has fallen right off and I'm looking at adding another 2 coveys of 4 birds just as soon as I can (especially as there's another large pen coming very shortly!!).

Quail accommodation.

I now have a double housed ark on one lawn and I am collecting another run over the weekend for the other lawn. The birds seem to love the ark and being on the lawn.

To ensure there's space in the garden shed I have Freecycled and Ebayed a couple of my brooding cages, 2 small arks, a parrot cage as well as a small hutch and a square run.
To replace the brooder cages I am collecting two 90cm long fish tanks, I prefer tanks to cages as they keep the mess down and offer better heat insulation properties. Unfortuantely that means I will now have 4 tanks (including my original brooder) so there may well be a bit more Ebay/Freecycle action to come!