|
“Why should I do that?” I hear you ask. Maybe you
shouldn’t. However, if you want
quality hawk food, fresh and readily available, it is a great start. I have found it very beneficial to feed
fresh quail to my hawks. Quail is a major part of most quality diets for raptors in the UK. Regardless of how good any hawk food may
be, quail included, it is essential for the well being of your hawk to have a
varied diet. In fact, quail is not a
complete food, notably lacking in vitamin E.
It is possible to feed this into your quail although I do not find it
necessary with a varied diet. However,
the main benefit I find with breeding my own is that of quality. I dispatch quail and feed fresh, gutted and
food tract removed. I usually remove
the feet, wings and neck for purposes of hygiene and tidiness of the
mews. It is a great aid to the moult
and for preparing hawks for the breeding season. Surplus stock is frozen for leaner times
and here you can really reap the benefits.
A quail that is cleaned and prepared correctly whilst still warm is a
treat to handle in comparison to the commercial quail that are frozen
unprepared. It is not a pleasant task
to gut thawed quail and less so when it amounts to cleaning a dozen. Coturnix better known as Japanese Quail, are ready for hawk food usually within six weeks and fully grown and ready for breeding at eight weeks. |
|
What do I
need? 1. Small incubator. 2. Brooder 3. Pens 4. Feeders and drinkers |
|
Incubators The
incubator is the main outlay but can usually be obtained second-hand. Companies such as Curfew and AB usually
produce quality products. Be wary of
Brinsea, especially their turners, the engineering leaves a lot to be
desired, especially on early Octagon
20 turners. I have had several lots of
eggs out on the floor because of turner failure. I didn’t find Brinsea very helpful, refused
to refund my money over faulty turners.
I do however use a Brinsea Multihatch, which is too big for a small
production, holding 600 eggs. Incubate
your eggs for 14 days at 37.7°C and then, either place in a hatcher or if
hatching in the incubator watch for the first signs of a pip and raise the
humidity. Eggs should hatch on or
about day 17. Don’t be tempted to lift
the lid off the incubator/hatcher as chicks are OK for two days providing the
ventilation is adequate. Lifting the
lid may result in some eggs not completing the hatch because of the membrane
drying out. Brooders A
brooder can be built quite easy by someone with modest woodworking
skills. A sheet of 8´x 4´ply, some
batten, wire mesh, wood glue, screws and staples is all that is required for
the wood-working. Two bulb holders,
wiring and plug completes the task.
Alternative heating can be provided by a hanging infra red lamp. Two
40 watt bulbs in my brooder design is fine but when hanging an infra lamp
above chicks you have to careful to supply the correct amount of warmth. The best guide is to watch the chicks
carefully for a while. If they start
huddling tight together, it is a sign that they are too cold. On the other hand, should they be trying to
avoid the lamp, they are obviously too hot.
Keep an eye on the situation and raise the lamp as the chicks get
older and less reliant on the heat, eventually requiring none at all. Pens Any
sensible design will suffice. My birds
usually stay in the brooder for two weeks and are then transferred to
pens. It is a case of moving them out
of the brooder if they start to get crowded.
Two weeks is the limit because the wood shaving bedding requires
changing at that period. A friend of
mine put all his quail in one pen and it suited him well. However, I like to use separate pens for
each hatch to easily distinguish the quality birds that will be my next
breeding stock. Being as I hatch up to
a hundred per week, it is not practical to put them all together, and
cleaning becomes a nightmare. In the
summer I utilise my partridge release pens for growers and they thrive living
out on the grass with a little shelter.
Winter time they are brought back to the brooder room more for
convenience than necessity. |
|
Feeders and
drinkers This
is an area that needs some careful consideration. Quail are not very bright and can drown, be
trampled and hang themselves in large mesh wire. I start chicks with a half
litre drinker and progress to a two litre drinker for growers and
layers. Feeders aren’t so dangerous
but care still needs to be taken. It
is not advisable to allow quail to run out of food or water. They are avid growers and need the food
intake to mature at six weeks. If left
to wait for water they will drown drinking birds by trampling on them in the stampede to get to the water
themselves. This can be a very a short period of being without water, so take
care. A note about water that is
useful to remember is to keep a stock in your brooder room so as not to chill
young chicks with winter water from the tap. Stock
maintenance As
your breeding stock will not last forever, you will need to find a way of
preventing in-breeding. Some people
buy in new cock birds every year, although I did so with devastating
consequences. I brought disease into
my system even after being assured that the stock was clean. I now keep a closed house and ensure I have
different lines to breed from. Feeding I
always use a medicated food for the first ten days or so. This is difficult to obtain between the
beginning of October and March. I use
ACS medicated turkey crumb. Until
recently I had to put this in the blender for very young chicks but have now
found another supplier who manufactures fine crumb. Some people will scoff at the use of medicated
food and friends of mine who breed quail have questioned this in the
past. However, if disease strikes your
stock it is a shock to the system and most begrudgingly convert . I found myself picking up to twenty-five
chicks a day out of the brooder in the mornings. On the fourth morning it is
almost a clean out with just a handful of chicks to grow on. This situation is just not viable and
requires avoidance at all costs. I believe that prevention is better than
cure and hopefully eliminates disease carriers in your stock. It is pointless to be bothered about what
diseases your quail can carry and symptoms because death usually occurs
before you see symptoms. If you are
unable to get hold of medicated food, it is useful to have some Terramycin
powder at hand to sprinkle onto food in case of emergency. It is recommended by the manufacturers that
Terramycin is added to water, but is only effective for a short period in
this form, hence I advise to sprinkle it on food. Usually, a level teaspoon mixed in half a
litre of crumb is about right. I use
natural food from day 10-14 onward, which is much easier to acquire. It |
|
is
important to use game feeds, with many mills now producing specialise quail
food life is a little easier. Feeding
ordinary poultry products will lead to rickets in your stock. Eggs for
incubation I
store my eggs in quail trays and place them in the refrigerator , turning
every day. I remove them twenty four
hours before the they are due in the incubator. One good reason for keeping your layers on
fresh shavings being the cleanliness of the eggs. However soiled eggs can be cleaned in warm
water. It is essential to use warm
water to expand the air in the egg thus preventing soiled material passing
through the shell. I use a broad
spectrum disinfectant from the Bird Care Co. but fresh warm water will
suffice. Up-side 1. Fresh high quality hawk food. 2. Unbeatable for moulting and
breeding hawks. 3. Don’t have to gut thawed
birds. 4. Probable cash savings. Down-side 1. Poor management will mean
losses. 2. Time consuming to set-up. 3. Set-up costs. Over-all All
the problems I have outlined are manageable, and benefits out-weigh any
problems, providing it is a long term project and good management and
husbandry principles are followed. |
