Hatching Quail

A few weeks back, on the 12th of March to be precise, eldest Sweetpea had some Quail eggs delivered.  He bought them on e-bay of all places and really wanted to hatch them out.

So, we popped them in the incubator and he made sure the humidity and temperature were correct for the eggs.  We had to turn them 3 times a day so that the embryo didn't stick to the side of the egg.  A few days before they were due to hatch we stopped turning them.

 
Fast forward to the 28th March and they started hatching out.  They were so cute, like little fluffy bumble bees with legs :-)  Out of 24 eggs 21 hatched, eldest Sweetpea did good !

Here are some obligatory cute shots of them .....

So tiny but so perfect .... you could fit a few in your hand at once (just so you know we didn't hatch a double headed Quail :-) ).

Then they started to grow.

They loved standing on tippy toes to see what was going on if you put them on your knee.

And they grew ..... now their beautiful feathers started to come through.

After a few weeks Eldest Sweetpea put them in a special pen outside so they could get used to living outside our house.

Then came the time we had to move them into their new home.  They moved in with 'Tiny' our Bantam to start with but she took a liking to eating their feathers so she had to move to a new home in the garden.  Eldest Sweetpea makes sure they have fresh water and food and the all important sand bath which they love.

Then on 25 May, just a few weeks after they hatched out themselves one tiny Quail started to lay ...... we were so excited, it was like finding a golden egg !

I hope you enjoyed reading about our Quail adventure .  I will be back tomorrow with a giveaway so please do pop back.

Take care
x