It’s ok – we have more in the incubator – we are not going to be out of quail, but this is a first for us. We aren’t shipping eggs off, this is a porch pickup of 22 little birds, all Coturnix split between Pharoh and Italian feather pattern. These were hatched on Easter, our earliest hatch yet of 16 days incubation. They are being sent off with gamebird starter food, and instructions to go to www.coturnixcorner.com for more information on how to raise them.
Could we give this info about how to raise them, and have we sent some information already? To a degree we have. We also know from personal experience, that for every question they have now, there will be 5-10 more waiting, and Coturnix Corner has a lot of truly beneficial info presented from the view of a non-breeder. It’s not biased towards someone trying to sell their birds, and we respect the basic openness and honesty of the site, and the support of the community rallying around it.
Our birds are starting to lay from the Texas birds that hatched in early March. We’ve got some amazing Celadon eggs that have brown speckles on them. While Gary is wonderful at caring for them, he loves working in his woodshop, so Annie is working to develop a line of Italian Blues which is a Cinnamon/Creme Italian feather pattern with blue eggs, and a subtle blue tint to the feathers. What is a Celadon Egg? It’s a quail egg that is a light blue-green color that is named after a type of ceramic popular in China. Celadon has hints of grey and jade in its hue and is a fairly sought after but elusive eggshell shade.
They aren’t anything different other than a color pattern that Annie is fond of, as are many other folks, and as she loves the Italians, that’ll be the direction our breeding will go towards. Due to the fact that developing this line is a lot of selective breeding, it takes a lot of focus to make sure that the lines aren’t too intermingled, as that can cause birth defects, and we all want healthy birds more than anything.
Today though – it’s just a Dad and his boy, starting on a project together. We are pretty thrilled for them to do this together and know their next stop before coming here is Rural King to get feeders and waterers. We hope that they enjoy their birds as much as we enjoy ours.
Annie is a semi-retired homebirth midwife, the Director and head doula trainer for the MattieMarie Traditional Birth Studies program, and a Farmer’s granddaughter. It all ties into her mad plan to be as self-sufficient as she can while returning to her roots.