Tumbledown Farm .9 Acres (give or take an acre or two)

Coturnix Quail Arrive at Tumbledown Farm

Our quail have arrived, breaking out of their shells just in time for Palm Sunday! The children loved watching the event unfold through the clear plastic windows of the GQF still air Hova-Bator incubator. Our hatch was small, probably due to my many mistakes, but we'll get the routine down and are busy celebrating the six chicks we do have. They arrived in just 17 days. All it took was keeping a watch on humidity (60% until the start of the hatch, then 75%) and temperature (100-102 degrees F). We lost one so far in our makeshift aquarium brooder; he was weak from the beginning and never seemed to figure out how to find the water or the food. We have a heat lamp (red) that keeps one section of the old 40 gallon aquarium a toasty 100+ degrees F. We have a few inches of peat in the bottom to absorb the waste and to provide "dirt" for dusting. For now we've covered the peat with paper towels (thick napkins) which we put down fresh with food and water.

Want to learn all about how to raise Coturnix? Check out the Texas A&M Extension Publication (PDF).

Again, there are more photos coming. It has been a busy week! We'll keep you posted as plans emerge for our mini "pastured poultry" operation in the grassy lanes between the rows of our garden. We are designing our own "pens" to fit our 22" grass lanes. We'll also begin to pasture the rabbits this year using a similar setup, but with wooden slats on the bottom of the pen to keep them from escaping. (We've already had one mishap with the pastured rabbits and we are studying to figure out our design flaw.)