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On My Oasis – A Tale of Two Chicks
As many of you know, only one month after we moved to the new house, someone came into our garden on a Sunday night and took our chicken from the coop. I was upset, disappointed and wary of carrying on with poultry after that, but as my pair of Japanese Quails started laying, I found a little encouragement. Hubby got me an incubator for my birthday, and after a little deliberation, we decided to try out some of the quail eggs and see what happened.
I spent the past weekend camping in Suffolk sowing our wildflower meadow (post and pics to come). Unfortunately I’d timed the hatching completely wrongly, assuming quails hatched at 21 days like chickens. It’s actually around the 17/18 day mark – slap bang in the middle of the weekend we were away. I also made some newbie school-boy errors, including leaving the eggs for about two weeks before beginning incubation, not storing them tip down, and then having a nightmare with the fluctuating humidity in the incubator itself. I fully expected to arrive home either to no hatches at all, or a load of dead chicks because they’d come out too early.
In fact, I found a bright yellow and brown mottled chick rushing around the incubator at the top of its lungs. It’s head was still a little wet so it couldn’t have been hatched for long. About an hour later, another chick pushed its way out – this time a little dark thing with bright eyes. It’s amazing how quickly they fluff up and get on their feet. I’ve only ever hatched chicks out under a broody hen before, so I’ve never had the chance to enjoy watching them in their first few minutes of life.
Both little chicks have now been moved to the brooder and I’m awaiting signs of life from any other eggs. I have no idea if they’re fertile even, so I’ll leave for another week and see what happens. Either way, there’s two new littl’uns in our menagerie, and I now know that the quails are laying fertile eggs so as soon as she starts popping them out again, it’ll be on to round 2!
With new hens coming in a few weeks, the quail chicks and the ongoing veggie growing, I finally feel that this suburban smallholding is finally getting on it’s feet.
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