Finished new cage and has 98 birds in it. They look happy snuggling into the bedding and sandbathing.
Spent the morning fine tuning the feeders.
The tower.
The inside that qual poke heads into.
Inside the pen. The centre piece of ply goes all the way down with some cutouts to allow feed to flow into feeding chamber. Put some holes in the top so they could see the food.
Took some photos of some flowering fruit trees yesterday. Also have partially built a new growout quail cage with bedding and auto water cups.Grimal jabotacaba flowering.
Hicks mulberry
Bosworth lychee
Longan sprays
Wampie flowers
Kiamana lychee
Pitanga flowers
Sabara jabo with tons of new growth
Seeding canistel
Pisang ceylon
Grumichama
Still a few oranges to go.
Starfruit always seem to be on these trees.
Broadleaf papaya.
Red mulberry
More pics in comments
My latest batch of quail is my most successful yet. Set 140ish eggs. After 14 days they were candled and only 7 were discarded as unfertile, another 7 or so looked suspicious but couldnt be certain. Day 18 saw a large hatch of 65. With another 20 hatch on day 19. Then the next 3 days saw another 20 stragglers. This is symptomatic of a cheap incubator as temperature varies throughout chamber so rates of development differ. In the first week had only 5 fatalities(which is pretty good these things are fragile). Upon post moretom of all the unhatched eggs there were 10 that did not fully develop, the rest were developed but failed to break out of the shells- a sign of unstable humidity, once again because of my cheap incubator. Am in the process of organising a quaility incubator/hatcher for later in the year. There is so much to learn but its rewarding to see progress. A couple of pics of the little fellasItalian chick above
Pharoah or wild type above.
Either a rosseta or tibetan. My fav colour.
Been running around like a headless chook for the last week and a bit trying to get jobs done in the garden. On the weekend went and visited a fellow stfc member and took some date palm pups from his palms. Got a male and female medjool, a bisexual medjool and a bisexual honey barjee.
The quail are feathering up. Collecting eggs to put anothr batch in tuesday night(so they hatch on a weekend).
Pulled out some tumeric and ginger to freeze.
Realised we have not bought any veges for a month!
Am harvesting nightly, lots of salads. Made a quail stew and beer battered trout on the weekend.
The tomatoes are going gangbusters in the net house. Planted winter brasiccas out(kale,cabbage, cauli and brocoli)Still have more seedlings to plant out. My friends kids that are staying in my granny flat love fresh veges.
Also had a visit from my physio that discovered I had moringa and wanted some cuttings and now some wants to buy some quail as well.
Pulled out 22kg of sweet potatoes from one 400L grow bag this arvo. Also picked 12 seminole pumpkins (25kg)from one vine. Still have my ube's to harvest and some chilacayote that will round out the winter staples.
Picked some cucs and some eggplants and my daily quail eggs. Grabbed a snap of the bok choy while I picked some for dinner.Checked my 120 eggs in the bator. Feasted on some starfruit, miracle fruit,papaya and peanutbutter fruit.
Great way to spend the arvo.
Found a couple of good printable quail info charts. Colours and sexing info for others farming these little tasty fellas.
Finally got my act together and built a fruit fly net screened dome tunnel. Only 6m x 2.4m but at the moment I am not allowed any more lawn space. Gotta be happy with my small victories!
Ok what an effort. This is new to me so it is a little rough, took me ages to figure out how to put the videos back together as my gopro will only do 5 minutes at 2.7K then splits them up. I have broken the tour into two parts and will upload the second part later and it takes ages. Made a youtube channel last year to put up some videos not realising the time it takes.
Anyhow this is the first part https://youtu.be/56vK5MhHGvo
Hope its enjoyable
Was thinking I might do a youtube video of a walk around the garden. It will probably take 20 minutes or so. Let me know if this would be worrhwhile. I am still happy if people want to come to my GV but can understand that certain age groups need to be careful.
Have butchered some excess male quail. Beautiful on the bbq for about 12minutes.Some females have started laying, about 8-10 so far. Planting lots of seeds in case I have to feed some freeloading friends. They all usually laugh at me and my obsession to grow my own food, they are not laughing now. Found my first pitangatuba flower this arvo!
Been a busy week trying to keep up with garden chores. The 60 quail are 5 weeks old and getting big, started building a brooder to keep in my garage.
Picking starfruits and acerolas.
Some fruit starting on a broadleaf papya plus our red papaya always produces.
Soursop flowers and a second round of muscadines on the way.
Seminole pumpkin vine has 12 pumpkins on it.
Tasty madronos
Gingers and tumerics loving the weather and my budda bamboo!
last pics of lush plants around the pool and a furry visitor I found
Quail have doubled size in a week and discovered they like moringa! Thats a win as it might save a little fees.
Made it to my first GV on the weekend, thanks all for being so welcoming.
Two and a half years ago I joined BLF and I was just looking back at some old pictures, wow how things have changed. Last year till now I picked phalsa, blueberries,grumichamas,black jabotacabas,black sapote,acerola,guavas,peanutbutter fruit,mangos, lychees,longans, wampies,papaya, red and black mulberries, starfruit,miracle fruit,figs,dwarf amberrellas,ice cream beans, yellow jabotacabas, muscadines,madrono and various citrus. Do not think that fruit trees are all long term projects.This pic is of a dwarf green coco that is only about 3 years old and 3 m high.
Dianne I will check with the boss about a GV here.Happy for late April or May.
