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Post by harrisi on Jan 31, 2009 19:08:53 GMT -5
Thanks. I do find that the rats/mice are covered in urine when I buy them from mass-produceing places and they often get freeze burnt aswell :S I have used cervical dislocation and spinal cord severing if the CO2 has been out but it takes soooo long to do mass killing lol!
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Post by harrisi on Feb 1, 2009 7:32:24 GMT -5
Got up this morning, started cooking our sunday lunch and fried some wild phesant (shot yesterday) for the rats, put all the veggie scraps into a bowl and went out to the "rodent room" (although that is now incorect, as there is quail in there aswell!), fed the phesant to the mice/rats and some of the veggies then set up an outdoor play pen for the quail and put some veggies around the floor and put them out a group at a time. Jamie's birthday was today so he got some money to put towards the land but his dad went out to the farmer and payed for the rest so we now have a few acres of land and a barn after saying thank you to Jamie's dad 100's of times we went out to the land and had a walk around to have a look at what was suitable for building play pens and the aviary on. We made plans for a 6'x8' aviary because we though it would cost alot but then we found loads of wood in the barn wich was previously used for the roof and the guy who used to have the land said we could use it if we wanted, otherwise it was just going to be burnt soooo now we are going to be building 5 3'x8'x6' aviarys. But now we have to find the money for about 5 rolls of mesh (we are going to start breeding NZW rabbits so we need mesh for their pens aswell). But I am soo excited! for now we are going to just move the quail hutches up to the barn and then put the exercise pens outside and its within walking distance so we can go take the dogs a walk at the same time and just walk around the land.
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Post by harrisi on Feb 1, 2009 15:26:36 GMT -5
Change of plan (that happens alot incase you havnt noticed ). We have now decided that we are going to have a huge breeding pen outside for the rabbits (and we will make it as natural and enriching as we can) and then we will make a few growing on pens. Then we wil convert the barn for the quail (ie. mesh doors, feeders, waterers, planted/grass patches, perches, shelves, plants for hiding/climbing and predatory proofing)- The barn is 26'x15' = 390 square foot, roughly 1 quail per 2 square foot = 200 quail MAX. (yes, I know that is over 1 quail per 2 square foot, but think about it, half of the shed will be "free" space so its fine) in the shed at a time. But, we will have to re-think! the plan was to just have them free roaming but we cant really risk having more then 1 cockrel in the same enclosure at a time so we will have to have maybe a couple of stacked hutches for breeding purposes, then the eggs will go into the incubator at my house and once hatched they will be put into a brooder in the feeder room then males will be killed at different stages and frozen/fed and females will be put into the shed to be grown on. Each quail will have a ring put on they're leg aswell of the month they were born so I can keep track on when to kill any for the freezer (I am planning on many ages - hours (the yoke sack of quail is quite nutritious), 4 days, 1 week, 3 weeks, 6 weeks, 10 weeks, 14 weeks, 20 weeks, 6 months, 8 months, 10 months, 1 year then lastly ex-breeders). Also eggs will be collected and sold to the local butchers but off course, some will be held back for the ferrets, rats and quail themselves.
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Post by harrisi on Feb 2, 2009 19:06:18 GMT -5
Time for a change of ingredients in the homemade mix for the rats and mice! It used to be pretty basic with just a few ingredients but here is what it has in it now:
15kg rolled oats (£7.00) 2kg/1bag of mixed seeds (£1.49) 1kg sugar-free bran flakes (89p) 1kg sugar-free puffed rice (89p) 500g dehydrated bannana chips (£1.08) 1.5kg flaked peas (72(ish)p) 1kg other dried veggies (carrot, kale etc) (£2.00) 3kg flaked maize (£1.20) 250g dried meats (-£1.00) 250g rice crackers (-£1.00) 2 kg whites premium chicken dog food (about £2.80) 200g dehydrated fruits (£1.29) 1kg kelp powder (£1.00)
so just over £26kg of food = £22.36 = $31.87 USD . This is fed along veggies and meats, but the mix is free fed. All animals are doing good, we are impatient so have got 30 day old quail on order, will be getting them in 3 days and the en-suite bathroom to my room will have the brooder in it.
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Post by harrisi on Feb 4, 2009 13:01:06 GMT -5
The quail breeder phoned Jamie today and told him to go pick them up there and then or he was going to throw them outside so we picked them up, quickly put together the brooder, set up the heat lamp and now all I can hear is chirping from the bathroom lol! Thats going to be annoying . The shop also phoned and said they wanted another huge order of rats at the middle of next month. So I got loads more breeder rats today, the good news is he only wants pinkies and fuzzies so maless can be left with most of the females.
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Post by AnimalFarm2006 on Feb 6, 2009 17:11:30 GMT -5
i love reading your posts! I acualy thought about doing quail myself, but now i'm just thinking of maybe chickens instead since i don't have the space to set up a pen, and chickens would just roam the woods, and land, and than be put up at night.
Thanks, cara
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Post by harrisi on Feb 7, 2009 4:04:31 GMT -5
Update first: We finally got the barn finished (modified doors, windows and bed boxes put in) , cleaned (we scrubbed the whole thing with F10 and hand brushes, agh lol ) and the floor sealed (dust proofing and PVA to stop anything soaking into the floor) 2 days ago so we went out a got the food hoppers, water tank, water troughs, wood shavings and straw and went back to the barn. We firstly tried to set up the water troughs - omg, I thought we were gonna be there forever ! It took quite a while as the troughs were so complicated to set up! But, finally we managed and we put them aside, then feeders were cleaned and set up and we started putting out the woodshavings (3 bales just to lightly cover the floor!) then we put in boxes, toilet paper rolls, bowls for vegetables and finally half a bale of straw on the floor and half a bale went into the bed boxes. For now, the big breeding group (1 male 7 females) will be put into the barn then when babies are old enough they will go into the barn AnimalFarm2006: We thought about chickens ourselves but we dont feed alot of chicken (or any raw food for that matter, its almost always whole prey just recently and we havnt fed chicken for a while apart from in soups) and they take alot of time and money to grow on for adult feeders. I love breeding the quail as they have such good characters, are cheap to feed and they dont need tons of room. You could probably have the quail free roaming the woods as long as they would "home" at night. Ours are all usually sitting up in the bed boxes sleeping when we go to shut the barn up for the night. Then again the plus side is if you feed chicken and raise your own its tons better quality then shop brought (which is often pumped full of drugs, growth hormones and crappy food - natural much?). When we worked cost out it would be roughly $23 per chicken to raise to adult hood, but if you have alot of vegetation on the land that is safe for the chickens to eat then it should be much, much cheaper.
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Post by AnimalFarm2006 on Feb 7, 2009 23:15:46 GMT -5
I kind of just like chickens because they would eat the ticks, and bad bugs the animals here get. ^.^ It would be a realy good pest controll.
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Post by harrisi on Feb 10, 2009 14:10:02 GMT -5
Thats very good point. I am now thinking about getting a few chickens for incubating quail egg and we can breed them for feeders...hmmm... I am now off to wonder around the wonderful world of google lol!
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Post by harrisi on Feb 13, 2009 18:59:39 GMT -5
Well thank you AnimalFarm2006! (note the sarcasm!) Long story short we will be getting 3 chickens in the morning Lol. Will post more tomorrow.
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Post by AnimalFarm2006 on Feb 13, 2009 19:15:52 GMT -5
:snickers: I do that often...Chickens are wonderfull because while you can eat the eggs, you can replace them with the quail eggs, and let them doa ll the dirty work!
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Post by fuzzymom on Feb 13, 2009 21:04:39 GMT -5
Do you have any pictures? I would love to see pictures of the rodents, rabbits, and quail, especially the quail. I was thinking of breeding them when we have our own place to use as feeders.
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Post by harrisi on Feb 14, 2009 6:06:44 GMT -5
Updates! Rats - Doing fine, going to start breeding again this week (the breeder gave me a few adults females) so should have some litters by the end of the month. Mice - I have fed off the mice. They stunk more then rats, they wernt as good mothers and they were more difficult to breed. JMHO. Quail - all is good, but it seems like months since we picked them up! I cant wait until they can go out to the barn lol! They are really noisy but really sweet and my brother has become their mother - he opens the brooder up and walks out my bedroom and all you can see is this on-going trail of quail chirping and walking across the floor after him, then he sits down and they huddle under him - its seriously the cutest thing EVER. He says he wants the brooder in his room but he recently had carpet put in his room and there is nothing for under the brooder and the en-suite is a shower room so the floor just gets shower off but no hope of that with carpet so for now he sits in the en-suite with them. They are going to be so social when they grow up Lol! Also we had some hatcling! Chickens - we just picked them up and they are settling in inside the quail barn then in a week they will be put into an outdoor pen. They all seem ok, I gave them some water with ACV in when we got home and they drunk some and they took some layers pellets aswell so we are both happy. We are planning on working up to 10 female chickens and 1 or 2 cockrels, we arnt sure yet. It worked out great as the person who bred them wanted some quail, so we gave her a few fertile quail eggs in swaps for the chickens! will post more later!
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Post by harrisi on Feb 14, 2009 10:25:43 GMT -5
Ok since I didnt get to finish earlier - AnimalFarm2006 - Yup, we got some eggs from the breeder and she had just collected them this morning so we had boiled eggs on toast and OMG I cant believe how different they taste to shop-bought eggs! They are lovely, much nicer! They have already cleaned up the barn of spiders Lol! Jamie took up some meal worms for them aswell which they seemed to enjoy. Fuzzymom - I got jamie to take some pics today and he said if he gets time he will put the pics up later/tonight. All you need for the quail though is a rabbit hutch or two, a bowl, a water hopper and a bed box. The barn is just a barn with mesh doors on the inside, food hopper placed around and a line of waterers. I definitely suggest quail, they re-produce quickly, cheap to feed, grow quickly and dont smell too much. I just walked up to check the chickens and they came over to greet me. As they seem to be settling quickly, I might put a play pen up for them tomorrow attached to the door so they can go in and out of the pen as they please, my only concern at the moment in the weather but the barn is pretty warm when it is closed up and they have bed boxes insulated. If we need to we can take up some heated snuggle safes aswell as they stay warm for 8+ hours anyway.
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Post by harrisi on Feb 15, 2009 5:31:51 GMT -5
This morning we got up pretty early so we went up to the barn and attached a run to the door of the barn for the chickens but they were stil fast asleep when we left Lol. I cant believe how calm and confident they are already, its like they have been here for years! Collected the eggs aswell which they had layed in the plant pots, they just let me reach under them and pull the eggs out One made a bit of a fuss, but they were brought partly because we want them to be mother hens! We got back, cleaned out the ferret, fed them then went onto the rodents - the rats got cleaned out and moved back into tubs for breeding, the pen was taken down and flat packed behind one of the racking systems, females will be introduced tomorrow. The quail are good, the heat lamp self-combusted (lol) last night so we had to fix that this morning also.
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