Photos of Quail babies

On Valentine's Day five baby Coturnix quail hatched. A "surprise" sixth chick hatched on February 17th. Hubby was planning to take the unhatched eggs out of the incubator and saw the little fuzzball running around. It may be hard to see him in the photos, but he is the smallest one. Here is a link to our quail babies. They are almost a week old now, and are already getting wing feathers. They all seem healthy and happy.

http://photobucket.com/albums/e128/jausenclaus/

Valentine Babies!

After two failed attempts, we now have five healthy, walking, pooping, chirping, eating and drinking quail babies. They are cute little brown butterballs. Either we are finally getting this incubation thing going, or Fred and Ethel (mommy and daddy quail) are just getting stronger. They run all over their brooder box and are just adorable. I'll post photos of them later.

Coturnix quail are bred for both meat and eggs. The Coturnix hen will lay up to 300 eggs a year, usually in Ethel's case about one a day, sometimes skipping a day. We really have no interest in eating the eggs and will not be killing them to eat or hunting them, but we'd like to have a bunch of quail at the farm to enjoy. These little quail have very sweet sounds and are not too flighty. So, we just incubate what she lays and hope we'll get a few babies in the process. We do need to get some eggs from another location to keep these little guys from inbreeding too much.

House update: The wallpaper should be finished today. The builder has been hanging lights, so the house is getting its character. Its very colorful. John's room is adorable and the wallpaper in the downstairs bath is really pretty.

They put in the pipe for the propane tank yesterday. We have to get a mail box, because we are actually getting mail. We also should be having the final concrete flatwork done, probably nextw week.

Chickens, quail and others, oh my!

I haven't talked much and have never introduced our newest additions to the farm family. Right before Christmas, we adopted a pair of Coturnix (Pharoah, Japanese) quail. This pair had been living with a lady who loved birds, but found she just couldn't take care of them anymore and was interested in giving them to someone who would be willing to incubate their eggs. Coturnix hens are prolific layers, usually laying one egg a day. We've had two hatchings (6 babies) of their eggs, but sadly none of the babies have survived. Tomorrow starts our third round, so hopefully by Valentines Day we might have some babies that will be strong enough to survive. Around the time of the first hatching, our friend contacted us about a pair of chicks that someone brought to her door. She asked us if we'd like to have them, so we brought them home and housed them with the quail until they got so big they were in danger of hurting them. They are now outside in the duck pen. We've named them Thomasina and Henrietta. The two quail are Fred and Ethel. I have a few photos of the chicks online at the following link - http://photobucket.com/albums/e128/jausenclaus/?action=view&current=henrietta.jpg
I still need to take updated photos of Fred and Ethel. They are looking tons better that they did when we brought them home.

This weekend, we are also expecting to receive about twenty-five quail from a rescue operation in California. The birds are just a small number of over 5,000 quail that were found in deplorable conditions at a slaughter house there. They are coming by van to deliver the birds to us. So, we have to get cracking on building pens for the ducks, quail and chickens. It has been a fun month or two, we hope everything will go smoothly when we move to the farm.

House update: Our granite countertops are in and are very pretty. The type of granite is Volga Blue and is very dark blue with peacock color blue shiny pieces randomly through it. I have yet to take a photo of it that shows it to its best advantage. In fact, that is one of the reasons I don't have current photos of the painted rooms yet on the blog. Its very hard to get good pictures of vacant rooms, especially in small spaces, so I'm goint to try to work on them. Charles has laid the floor in the master bedroom and hallway. It's looking really pretty. John's room is adorable and the two upstairs baths look great, just the way I thought they'd look. The master is still missing the clawfoot tub though. It will be installed with the rest of the plumbing fixtures. I meet with a wallpaper hanger on Monday, so hopefully we will have all the wallpaper finished next week.

Four Things Meme

I was tagged here

Four jobs I've had:

1. Ice cream shop
2. Bank Teller
3. Museum Curator
4. Mom (the best job)

Four places I've lived:

1. Dallas Metroplex
2. Colorado Springs, Colorado
3. Brazosport area, Texas
4. Lubbock, Texas

Four websites I visit daily:

1. Yahoo Groups (Moms, Chickens, Pets, etc)
2. Ebay
3. Soapcentral.com
4. Google (I look for info on lots of different stuff, right now mostly house or kid related)

Four television shows I love to watch:

1. 1. Desperate Housewives
2. Greys' Anatomy
3. Extreme Home Makeover
4. All My Children

Four of my favorite foods:

1. Chicken Fried Steak
2. Sliced tomatoes
3. Enchiladas
4. Seafood

Four albums I can't live without (at least for the moment):

I'm terribly boring and can't remember the last one I bought, probably kid related though.

1. The Wiggles Big Red Car (when we're in the big red truck)
2. Styx Paradise
3. Phantom of the Opera
4. Les Miserables

Four DVDs I can't live without (at least for the moment):

1. Anything Thomas the Tank Engine
2. Phantom of the Opera
3. Gone with the Wind
4. Showboat

Four places I'd rather be:

1. Grand Canyon
2. Colorado
3. Mountains
4. London

Four people I am tagging to do this meme are:

I don't know anyone else that does blogs, so I'm sending it to my book club and my mom's group.

This little exercise really shows you how boring my life really is.

Starry, starry night

Yesterday, we had the first party at the new house. My son turned 4 on Wednesday, February 1st. Its hard to believe four years have gone by. We had mostly family over and his best friend. They seemed to have a blast. One of the nice things about living out there is it is great for kite flying, no trees, houses to crash against. We gave John a huge dragon kite and after a little bit of tweaking he was flying it really good. After dinner, we went back down to the house. As we got out of the car, I looked up at the sky. It was clear and you could see stars everywhere. It was so beautiful, quiet and still. We went up to John's new room and looked out his window to see the moon. Many people have wondered why we want to live so far out from town. This is definitely one of the benefits. I can't remember being able to see stars like that from my home, and the moon is usually behind the trees.

House Update: We now have a septic system and one flushing toilet. Wood flooring is being laid. I will be meeting with wallpaper installers sometime this week and we will be purchasing all of the hardware (door, cabinet, bathroom), and the last of the lights. We hope to be moving in by the end of February.