New things

I am a real animal person, my husband is not. I grew up in a farming environment and have always been surrounded by animals of one kind or another. When I first left home I lived in a bedsit and we weren't allowed pets of course, so I smuggled a hamster in. It just didn't feel right to not have any animals round me. I got found out though and the hamster was evicted, he had to go and live at mum and dad's!

My husband however, is a townie and isn't keen on animals at all really. He is really soft on his cats though, but don't tell anyone, it would ruin his image!! The kids aren't allowed any more pets in the house, but he doesn't seem to mind the things we have outside. So the rabbits don't bother him too much, except for when they create sunrooves for their hutches and I need his expert D.I.Y. skills. He isn't really that interested in the chickens, but he does enjoy their eggs and he did build their house for them.

So I'm thinking maybe some quail would be nice, you know, just a trio, maybe. They won't take up much space and Hubby loves quail eggs too, although it would probably take about 20 to feed him once! So I have been looking around and finding out about them. I found this nice blog here; http://kooringa.com/?p=7482 Allotment lady has quails and has some lovely pics of them.

I also took the girls to see some locally yesterday. The lady was a bit wary of us wanting to sell eggs and compete with her 13 year old son, who's venture they were, not likely, I will be stuffing them down faster than they will lay!! They had four Japenese and one Italian. Very cute and smaller than I expected.

I'm still undecided on the best housing and also a tad confused about their diet, so if anyone has any expert quail wrangling advice I would be very grateful.





As for the brood of chickens I still only have one ex-batt laying, I was hoping that after their vague moult Cinnamon would decide to lay again, but nothing yet bless her. It looks like I only have one youngster laying too, as I have had five tiny eggs from them since Saturday. Mind you, I'm not sure if they lay every day at the beginning or whether they build up to it. Anyone know the answer to that one?

The youngsters (duck-chickens) - all grown up!

A valiant effort. 3 'first eggs' and 1 ex-batt egg

I must start thinking about combining the two pens too. The ex-batts are still separate from the youngsters at the moment, but I want to combine the runs for winter. The ex-batts only have cat box beds right now and I really want them in the main house before it starts getting really cold. They range together (kind of) when they are all out and their pens are right next to eachother, so I'm hoping they will integrate well. I just need to connect the two pens together, then they will all have the run of both. The ex-batts pen is completely covered so it will be better for all of them to have a bit more dry area.

The current set-up. I want to link the two.

Speaking of youngsters, this is one of my bunnies - Butterfly (!!?)

And judging by her current mood swings (eek, psycho bunny) I think she may be pregnant! So we will have some more youngsters in the fold. Should be in about a week and a half, so i'll keep you updated and hopefully have some pics to post.

I apologise if the spacing in this post is all messed up, it seems to do that when I mess about and post photos!