About a week ago, I started a new venture: Button quail. These are the smallest creatures I've ever been responsible for. If you stuck two bumblebees together, you'd just about have one of these!
So far, all six are doing very, very well. They've been growing wing feathers (which makes their wee wings look ridiculously long compared to their bodies) and eating and pooping and peeping and doing all the things healthy young chicks should. Their beaks are so tiny that I have to grind the chick starter kibbles in my mortar and pestle to make it fine enough for them to eat. And eat they do--a surprisingly large amount for such tiny bodies!
As soon as they grow more feathers, I'll be moving them out to a modified hutch on the porch. There, with any luck, they will grow, and lay eggs, and multiply...and in time, perhaps supply me with the means to become the Quail Egg Mogul of Prairie Farm. These eggs are ridiculously expensive and in demand in posh restaurants, just imagine what cachet organic ones will have! (I wish I could say they'd be free range, too, but at one pound and mildly stupid, these wee creatures would be predator fodder in no time!)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for taking the time to read and leave a comment! All comments will be reviewed before posting. So, comment away--I look forward to reading your thoughts!