Her days are numbered as we don’t want to be breeding this hen, when – and if she ever does, lay eggs… I’m just waiting until I have enough other quail accumulated for a processing day so I can send them to freezer camp as she’s maybe two quail nuggets total worth of meat. With 29 in brooders right now and another 34 in the incubator to be candled tomorrow, I’d say we’ll be there around the middle to end of March.
We are also getting about a baker’s dozen of eggs a day from our adults out in the greenhouse.
This morning when Gary did the check on the cages for frozen water and oddly timed eggs we found our ‘little miss “too tiny to lay eggs hen” had escaped via the rollout space and was wandering the greenhouse.
Our 8-month-old predominately Lab puppy found her. After two failed tries to get her, she picked her up and dropped her at the door of the greenhouse at my husband’s feet.
This isn’t the first time she’s cornered a quail, but it is the first time she retrieved and dropped. The last time was when one escaped outside on a warm day… this time just inside the greenhouse.
We are really pleased with how it’s turning out around here and creating a tiny homestead is a definite challenge when you don’t know how your bigger animals are going to handle it. We were told by the gal we got her from that Meri (our puppy) had a mama that was an excellent dog with her chickens, but as we live in the suburbs and are literally doing the tiny homestead thing – we didn’t know how any of our dogs would react.
Go Meri! We’re thrilled to see how she’s growing up, and maybe a little relieved as her behavior has become pretty consistent…
Maybe I’ll get to escape to the greenhouse today and work in it while the weather is mild. Unlike Meri, our weather doesn’t have a predictable temperament.
Annie is a semi-retired homebirth midwife, a 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.