Quail

[GilpinGuy]

Bear scare. My wife called me right before left from work this morning saying that a big ass bear is going ape shit by our garbage box and shed (now the quail house) as we spoke. She's freaked out and I'm pissed thinking that he's gulping down my birds one by one. I do 100 MPH getting home. Luckily he only did a number on the garbage box and left the birds alone.

The funny thing is that I was thinking of making some bear "unwelcome mats" today for the door and windows of the shed to keep them away. I definitely am now! I got lucky as hell.

I'm not so much worried about bears smelling and wanting the birds, but there's a tray of feed in there at all times. That would be candy for them. The 50 lb. bag of feed is kept in our house. Glad I thought to do that or it would have been irresistable to a bear and I'd be building a new cage today.

[02ducky]

Bear scare. My wife called me right before left from work this morning saying that a big ass bear is going ape shit by our garbage box and shed (now the quail house) as we spoke. She's freaked out and I'm pissed thinking that he's gulping down my birds one by one. I do 100 MPH getting home. Luckily he only did a number on the garbage box and left the birds alone.

I heard rubber buckshotqwerty
The funny thing is that I was thinking of making some bear "unwelcome mats" today for the door and windows of the shed to keep them away. I definitely am now! I got lucky as hell.

I'm not so much worried about bears smelling and wanting the birds, but there's a tray of feed in there at all times. That would be candy for them. The 50 lb. bag of feed is kept in our house. Glad I thought to do that or it would have been irresistable to a bear and I'd be building a new cage today.

I heard rubber buckshot works well on bears...

[GilpinGuy]

Update: the oil pans from Autozone are working awesome. Really no need for newspaper or anything else. The poop really comes off easily. It's like pea sized balls for the most part, not a "splat" like you get on your windsheild. A simple rinse with a hose after a week and the trays look new. Didn't even really need a rinse yet, but I wanted to see how hard it would be to get totally clean. It just came right off with a good blast of water. Sweet.

I have 2 sheets of plywood waiting to made into unwelcome mats for bears tomorrow. The bears are bulking up. Gotta get these layed down asap.

I should have first eggs in a week or so. I can't wait.

[Irving]

Are you eating the eggs?

[buffalobo]

Are you eating the eggs?

Busted. Read the post before yours.

Edit -
Wait, do you mean "Are you going to eat the eggs?"?

If so then never mind. My own assumption was they planned to eat the eggs all along. Grew up raising chickens for eggs and meat.

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[Irving]

Yeah, I want to know if they plan on eating the eggs. I was under the impression that he got them for meat more than anything else; plus I thought the eggs are tiny.

[jdranchman]

I've had several friends that raised quail and all of them ate the extra birds and pickled the eggs - both are quite tasty.

[rbeau30]

Pickled eggs... *drool*

[Bailey Guns]

The quail are as thick as fleas up here where we're staying. In town, of course, so dinner via the .410 is a no go. Too bad...they're tasty.

Keeping an eye on this to see how the egg gathering turns out.

[GilpinGuy]

We plan on eating the eggs for now, then hatch a bunch of birds and cull old, small, and extra male birds for meat.

From what I know, 4 or 5 quail eggs equal one chicken egg. And they are supposed to taste the same. What's awesome is the volume of eggs. 1 egg per bird per day on average. I have 17 hens, so figure 15 eggs a day. That's 450 eggs a month! Or 90 to 112 chicken eggs. And the feed to egg/meat ratio is smaller for quail.

The real reason I looked into quail is the small startup cost and minimal effort needed to raise them compared to chickens and ducks. Chickens and ducks make noise too. Quail are almost silent. You could raise them in the city in your garage and your neighbor would never know.