COTURNIX QUAIL
(Page 4 of 6)
Food should be supplied in flat trays for several days, after which it can be given in chick feeders. Make sure that the feed is ground fine-you can use a blender to reduce it to the consistency of drip-grind coffee-to enable the chicks to eat it without choking. Provide water in a standard Mason jar waterer with marbles or pebbles placed in the tray to attract the tiny birds.
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For the first two days the wire-mesh floor or litter should be covered with burlap, but be sure the edges are secured so the babies can't get underneath the fabric and smother! Incidentally, don't use hardwood shavings for litter, since such materials can irritate the birds' eyes and nasal passages.
Maintain an incubator temperature of 98°F for the first week. After that, decrease the heat by 10°F each week until the chicks' cold-tolerance level matches the ambient outside temperature. (In summertime, this will take two or three weeks.) When it's time to take the quail out of their nursery, put them in a pen by themselves. They may be pecked to death if caged with mature birds.
TRICKING THE LIGHT FANTASTIC
The laying cycles of Coturnix are-like those of many other types of poultry keyed to the increase and decrease of daylight. The birds improve their productivity when the days start to lengthen in early spring, lay well as long as daylight lasts 14 hours or more, and then slow down. This means that, at the end of September, you must provide extra light if you want to prolong the period of good egg production. You can use a 60watt bulb for every two-tiered chicken brooder or similar cage ...or, if you prefer, install individual bulbs of, say, 7 or 15 watts in each coop.
On the other hand, you won't want your birds to keep on laying when it's time to fatten them up for the table. A decrease in the amount of light will stop the quails' breeding urge and lessen their activity, allowing them to put on weight. However, the birds must be exposed to several (about six, but less than eight) hours of sunlight each day if they're to stay healthy. By covering a cage with louvered doors or shutters, you can control the exposure to light, at the same time assuring good ventilation (which is essential). Quail confined to light-denial cages between the ages of two and five weeks develop more slowly than normal, yet become larger mature birds.
QUAIL EGG DELIGHTS
The fast-maturing qualities and desirable feed-to-egg ratio of the Coturnix can make egg production quite profitable. The "quail fruit" can be served in the same ways as can chicken eggs-fried, scrambled, baked, poached, boiled, and in sundry recipes (where you'll need to substitute approximately five quail eggs for one large chicken egg)-plus a few specialties. Caterers who serve Oriental cuisine are sometimes willing to pay respectable prices for Coturnix eggs, as are bars and cocktail lounges ...which serve them, hard-boiled and chilled, with drinks. Pickled quail eggs are also a delicacy, and sell-in my part of New York for over $1.80 a pint. (A recipe for pickling eggs accompanies this article.)
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