A few days after getting our quail, we had a cold spell set
in and our biddies stopped laying. It would be another three weeks before we
would get any eggs from our girls. As the weather started to warm up and has
slowly shown more signs of consistent temperatures, we have started getting
some eggs again, but that hasn't been without some effort on our part. We wanted
to improve what we could control for our quail, even if the weather was all
over the place.
We have since learned that female quail will always lay
better when there is one male around (which we do have). There is a delicate
male to female ratio that must be met with quail if you want to maximize your
daily egg laying. Too many males will stress out the females and none of them
will lay.
We have also learned that quail lay better when they have
clean water. We had to get them a smaller waterer just to be sure that it would
stay clean. If you have a large lip for your waterer like we had, they will
manage to poop in it and kick their sand bath in it as often as possible. With
a smaller lip it is harder to soil the water and with cleaner water you get
more eggs.
While wild quail like to be on the ground, our cage born
biddies were not used to such a thing. I believe that innately they enjoyed
being on the earth, but when it came to the practicality of laying and cleaning
themselves daily, this was a much harder job to do. Joel raised their coop off the
ground and we have seen what seems to be an improved attitude from all of them.
Our quail also seem to like a variety of nesting boxes. We have one covered box like the one pictured above that is situated below their roosting area (they do not roost). We also have two paint trays full of straw (one in the roosting box and one below). There is one quail that seems to prefer to lay in the sand box too. Variety is the spice of life even if you are a quail!
Most humans don’t feel so good or productive when they are
dirty, I think quail share in this sentiment. Our quail are much happier and
seem to oblige us with eggs when we are consistent with their sand bath. There
is nothing cuter than watching the flock of them dive into the sand and throw
it all over themselves, making sure not to miss a single feather. This sand
bath helps them to rub mud, poop and other debris off their bodies which keeps
our birdies healthy and clean. Healthy, clean birds lay eggs.
We are really like finding a few eggs a day. It is like
a little gift every afternoon and we both have been really delighted by the
simple joy of it.
