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There is a colour explosion in my incubators! I have never seen soo many different colours and patterns of coturnix before! Just goes to show that they can possess as much variety as buttons in a much more tolerant package! I will have some available for mt forest and will be offering some throughout the season in mixed hatching eggs.
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Finally progress has been made in my assorted Coturnix breeding projects! I'm on my last batch of up and comers for the season, and have a few new colours and patterns to play with come spring! Most note worthy are the new colours of blue and silver (pictured left). Both are very pretty colours in person. I'm looking forward to working with them next year and hopefully establishing full coloured pens by the end of the season. Also in my up and comers batch is a pied (not sure of the colour, brown or blue maybe), and a brown tuxedo. I also have 2 small batches of chicks containing chicks from my jumbo golden pen and my golden X hen... her chicks all hatched out looking brown, but so did she, so i'm hoping at least 1 might be a suitable match. My good friend julianna has graciously offered to brood the 1 batch for a couple weeks just to help them along. Great help with my life being so busy at this point! Fingers crossed to get a good true jumbo sized male from the jumbo goldens, and i would love to get another hen that is over the 300 gram mark to put in the breeding pen next spring. The male i currently have is a bit smaller then i might like but the hens are 2 out of 3 jumbo lol. Speaking of jumbos, My breeding stock is looking to be in great shape. All my jumbo brown hens are in the jumbo range with the largest being 337 (if memory serves), biggest golden jumbo is 327, and i have a nice heafty jumbo Rosetta sitting at 309! I'm thrilled! I look forward to seeing what they can produce next year, and really hope to focus on the males to bump their size up to where i want it! Ever hear about Quail math?! No? Its almost a kind of theory that explains how (for instance) my incubator that was destined for 1 last hatch this season (for a hatch-along of all things lol) went from a population of 34 eggs to almost an entire tray lol. How does such things happen you ask? Well it starts off with something innocent like being invited to a hatch along (where multiple people set eggs at the same time)... you keep it modest for that, say 34 eggs(i couldn't accomplish 3 dozen lol).... then there's a show coming up and you want prime junior birds, so in goes a second batch, about the same size as the first, maybe a bit smaller.... then your friend finds out your bators still on and hands you some eggs to incubate... then you look at the results and go... hmm there's only a few empty slots, why not top it off... Thankfully i wont have to keep all the ones that hatch lol. For my eggs there are mostly golden jumbos, and a few odds and ends... I'm hoping to up the size of my goldens by a bit more in time for spring, they are doing well yet, but always striving for better. There are some rosettas in there too i believe, really hoping to get a few more hens, he just pays too much attention to his 1 girl lol. Oh and possibly most interesting is that there is a few eggs from my mystery golden, shes wild type gold with manchurian gene at best guess! hoping to get something like her! if nothing hatches like her, then we'll go with plan b, breed a son back to see if i can get more... if not, then its probably a fluke colour. So if anyone local is after quail, specifically golden or brown, i will have some for sale in a while lol My good friend Julianna invited me over yesterday and we took on the poultry world. We sexed some chickens, processed some chickens, and also processed our first batch of quail! We had both done other types of birds, but this was our first time doing quail so we kinda applied other techniques and went on our way. I think we made out just fine! We ended up dry plucking, it worked out better then the hot dunk, but maybe the water wasn't the right temperature? Something to note about quail, very thin skin! the 2 "ribs" of feathers across the breast were particularly prone to little tears when plucking. Perhaps next time I'll try a hot dunk again, but i think I'd jut go with a wee pot over a small fire, might be easier. We did skin 1 to see what the difference was, and there wasn't much to be honest! Oh another note, laying hens have dark (maybe bruised) vent areas, i don't think there's anything wrong with it, just a bit alarming to see at first lol. The end result was better then i expected! The hens were noticeably larger then the males, which we also expected. this processed group was mostly extra males, but there were a couple females to bump up numbers so we could both get a good meal out of them. By the time we had finished chatting and cleaning, it was late in the evening so we decided to have them another day. I always seam to loose track of time there! So we split up the birds, said our goodnights and i headed home with a pretty set of naked quail lol. I got home and set them in some marinade and put them in the fridge till the next day when I'd cook em on the BBQ. I like to use Dianas Herb and Garlic Marinade, very tasty and seams to go with everything! Only down side to it is that it darkens rather quickly on the BBQ. I'm used to it so it doesn't bother me much. So I tossed them on the BBQ turned them on both sides then stood them up on their breast and voila! BBQ Coturnix Quail! They were quite tasty, a cross between turkey dark meat and something else, but i can't quite decide what! Give it a try, its mellow enough even my mom likes it but different enough from standard poultry that my dad enjoys it also. It never gets old! Another colourful hatch of coturnix quail from my friend out west, Carmen! Shipping eggs from one side of the country to the other does take its toll, but it looks like i ended up with some variety in there! I ended up with 11 so far (i don't think any more will hatch), and can see 6 or 7 different looking chicks in there, so fingers crossed that i might end up with a great base for breeding next year! My next batch is due to hatch on the 18th and my final batch is due on the 24 of september, both will be from my breeding pens and many golds should abound! I also set a couple rosettas and a few from my strange golden X. |
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News from the Rene Farm, all our projects, shows and points of interest. Keep up to date on our breeding progress as well as animal sales. Archives
March 2014
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