A couple years ago, I met a man through work who raises both quail and pheasants. I spoke with him for a very long time, asking many, many questions. He seemed happy to share his knowledge, and was more than happy to show me his facilities and told me about how much demand there is for stocking some of the local hunting preserves. That sort of lead me to doing some reading and watching prices at several poultry and exotic auctions. Then I sort of dropped the idea, a couple of years passed and nothing came of it. Until around 4 months back, when I saw these people claiming to be raising “indoor chickens.” The indoor chickens were not chickens at all. They were quail. As I was thrown back into the idea I had a couple years ago, I also read a couple of articles claiming that the best source of antioxidants and superior nutrition was found in quail eggs. I then did some checking, and found a lot of people selling the eggs for rather pricey amounts. I did a whole bunch of reading from a variety of sources. After that, I approached the topic with Jim. He was courteous and listened to every single thing I told him, and then sort of got this far away look and said “do you know how many tiny quail eggs you would need to make a decent size breakfast?” And that was the end of the conversation for a few weeks. When we were on vacation, we had a lot of time to revisit it, and Jim told me he didn’t care if I wanted to give it a try. I found a few birds relatively close for sale, but with the weather quickly turning cold, I told Jim I thought waiting until spring, working on the pen through the fall and winter, and doing a little more reading might be a good idea. I also talked to a friend of Colin’s who has been raising them just to try to reestablish the wild population around this area.
And then last week, I bought a wreath from a girl in our 4-H club. Her mom mentioned to me that they were in
On the way to pick up a few quail from a man, and they used them to teach their dogs to flush. I half jokingly told her that raising them was on a list of spring projects. This week, she called. She had several left from the bunch she bought, and needed to get rid of them before they left for a dog show this weekend. It seemed like fate so I did what I do. I jumped in with both feet, rump deep. Now I am the proud owner of 8 beautiful Bob White quail.
Tonight’s project - pick them up, run to buy game bird feed, and supplies for their pen. Tomorrow’s project- build their pen. Yes, that is always how I do things. Backward. Upside down, swinging from the seat of my pants. And I’m happy. Happy about the opportunity. Happy that Jim seemed excited about it. Happy that these sweet little birds were making content noises in my garage when I went out for the 35th time to check on them. Happy. I’m not sure how it will work out, not exactly sure what we have gotten ourselves into, and sure that since I am working all weekend, I am going to have to bust my buns tomorrow, but happy nonetheless. I can’t wait to eat a little, tiny, antioxidant rich omelet - I figure I can use one of the baby spoons that we got from uncle Ray!
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