Building Blocks

Hello Readers,

This is the official first post of what will hopefully be an ongoing blog, "Birth of the Bird", that documents any peculiar behavior or big news relating to my birds. First, I have three button quails. One of them was born months ago (I never kept count) and the other two were born around July 9th. I also have a peachick that hatched on August 5th. I used to have two, but one died. We had to help him/her out of the egg and it was weak all its life. So, now we have one. A few days ago, our button quails started laying eggs. Now we have three eggs in the incubator. Today, we made a major revamp by moving the male and female button quails (Chickapee, a female cinnamon red-breasted and Tac, a male blue faced quail) into a bigger cage that prevents them from being able to bonk their heads as well as has room for the baby button quails to fit, but the bars are too close together for them to be able to slip through. At first, it seemed like a good plan. Unfortunately, Tic (male, born a day before Tac) is all alone in the original cage. Soon, once we hatch the button quail chicks and get a female, we will put her with Tic. By November, I should be expecting three eggs a day.

With the tragic loss of KirbyII's (our Indian Blue peachick) companion, he has been dying for attention. We put him in my room to stop the squawking, but now he throws a tantrum every time I leave the room. It gives me a warm feeling inside that I'm needed and a great excuse not to get out of the house. Erm, on a different note, I'm going to try and find a chick (this time, I just mean a baby chicken) that I hope will be a hen for KirbyII. My plans are, once KirbyII gets too big for his hutch, we will keep the chick inside it and collect the eggs to eat. The best part about that plan- no sperm! It would be impossible for the eggs to be fertile, which would make me not feel like I'm about to upchuck an egg from it. I'm still not too happy about eating a button quail egg that is very likely to be fertile, but I really want to know what they taste like. Plus, I heard that they're like popcorn when hard-boiled. You can just pop 'em in your mouth!

For you readers that are not on the BackYardChickens forums, you are probably wondering if I live on a farm. Well, just to steer away from legal issues, sure. Let's go with that :) . Ah, farm life. Speaking of BackYardChickens, anyone who has a bird should join that site. It is the best website you'll ever find in the history of the universe. The people there are very friendly and the website itself is loaded with information.

Before I finish this post, I'd like to add that I have another website. I rarely update it because I constantly upload tons of videos and/or pictures that I'm way too lazy to add. I may start back up again in 2011 or late Fall. The website is here.

Thanks For Reading,

Roey