|
Post by fuzzymom on Nov 16, 2010 15:20:57 GMT -5
Right now my ferrets are on a grain-free cat kibble because raw was just too expensive for us to do correctly. Now, we might be moving soon and this means I will hopefully have a larger animal room to begin breeding many species of whole prey. I will be breeding the following inside, in my animal room.....
Mice, Rats, Gerbils, and African Soft Furred Rats.
So that is 4 different types of prey animal, but they are all rodents. Is it possible to breed some type of bird, successfully, INDOORS, that is not too loud or messy and can provide me with birds for my ferrets? We will have a backyard, but this will be a rental place and keeping things on the DL is a must.
I was thinking button quail....but where on earth would I get live breeding button quail?
|
|
|
Post by horse656 on Nov 16, 2010 16:30:01 GMT -5
button quail are fairly small, so i think it might work if you can get your hands on any. but i believe the incubator's are expensive. gerbils take forever to breed, in case you didn't know.
|
|
|
Post by kainslie on Nov 16, 2010 17:51:46 GMT -5
Quail can be found online, or on kijiji or CL, just look up breeder birds or something
instead of gerbails you should do hampsters
and you have two rats, i'm not sure but I would think it's the same speices. (so only 3 types of protiens)
|
|
|
Post by Kerit on Nov 16, 2010 18:00:17 GMT -5
In my experience, ring-neck doves are extremely easy to breed. It involves a lot of squawking and cooing, but it's nowhere near the volume of a bird like a conure or even cockatiel. My pair of doves would lay eggs non-stop, and always hatch out two babies if we let them (we resorted to refrigerating the eggs to kill them, then giving them back for them to sit on until they figured it out and went right back to making more).
They raise the babies without any help, and are very sweet creatures (because they're also dumb as rocks). I haven't checked for years, but they weren't very expensive when I had mine, either.
|
|
|
Post by fuzzymom on Nov 17, 2010 5:52:59 GMT -5
African soft furred rats are VERY different from your average rat. They are native to africa.
I am well aware that gerbils are hard to breed. I have a pair that has been together since March and has not produced offspring.
|
|
|
Post by rarnold18 on Nov 20, 2010 17:40:28 GMT -5
button and pharoh quail are pretty easy to breed and you can usually find incubators on ebay pretty cheaply...Check your local Craigslist in the farm and garden section, you'll most likely find some there.... they do well on chick starter once they are hatched and they are dumb as rocks...you can't leave water bowls filled in their cage or they will get tired while drinking and lay their heads down and drown themselves... it's best to fill a bowl with marbles or round rocks about the size of marbles and then fill with water that way if they get tired their head is on a marble or rock instead of submerged...as chicks they are pretty quiet and "peep" but when the males get older they will, I don;t even know what to call it...it almost sounds like they are saying "chappaquitick" it's weird and almost sounds exotic compared to normal birds and chickens...
|
|
vkp23
Going Natural
Posts: 192
|
Post by vkp23 on Dec 31, 2010 23:09:39 GMT -5
Quail would be GREAT! AND you can build your own incubator for REALLY cheap! I raise poultry. I built my incubator out of an old mini fridge that I had that didn't work any more. If you go to backyardchickens.com you can find all kinds of info on how to build an incubator and how to incubate and hatch eggs. Also, They have threads where you can find hatching eggs people have for sale and they can ship to you. You can also check ebay for hatching eggs. Also, if you didn't want to hatch your own breeders I would suggest having day old quail shipped to you from IDEALpoutry.com They are the only ones I know of that can and will do small orders (Under 25 birds.) But the season for ordering wont start back up til like FEB-March. Hope this helps.
|
|