Science Unplugged

Raising quail wasn’t all work.  Every summer we entered our birds in the County Fair and every year we won Best in Show.   Not because our quail were the best but because they were the only quail entered.

We had created educational displays about what quail ate and how they lived in the wild for the kids. One day the principle of a local private school stopped at our fair booth and asked if I could to do a presentation to the science class.  She also asked if they could hatch quail eggs in the classroom like they could chicken eggs.  The classroom incubator was the same type I used to start my quail business so I told her I thought it would work.

The presentation went well and I don’t know who was more excited about the hatch, me or the kids.  Every day I stopped by after school hours to check the temperature and humidity.  The eggs were scheduled to hatch on a Monday so I stopped in the Friday before to get everything ready for the big event.  Early Monday morning the principle called to say something was terribly wrong and could I come right away.  When I got there a familiar smell greeted me – dead chicks.  I ran over to the incubator and saw some of the eggs half open and some that were fully hatched but dead.

We quickly cleaned out the dead and dying chicks and tried to get rid of the smell before any kids arrived.  I was horrified and could not figure out what had gone wrong.  Everything looked perfect on Friday. Even though a few chicks hatched and survived that day, they asked me to remove the incubator immediately after school.  Since I didn’t seem to know what had happened they were not willing to risk finding any more dead chicks the next morning.

I didn’t think I could ever show my face at the school again until the principle called and apologized.  The weekend before the hatch the janitor mistakenly unplugged the incubator to plug in the floor polisher.  The sudden drop in temperature and humidity caused the initial carnage.  Once the temperature was back to normal the rest of the chicks were able to hatch.

 They hatched chickens the following year and that was just fine with me. 

 

 

The Great Chucker Chase

                Our Game Bird License covered all Game Birds so besides raising several types of quail we also tried raising Chucker partridge.  They were beautiful grey and black birds with red legs.  Larger than the quail, they were more expensive to feed and hard to keep.  When they failed to breed for us we decided to keep them to show at the county fair and named them Romeo and Juliet.

                One day I was carrying a large feeder into the pen and Juliet got out.  Chuckers prefer running to flying when hunted and only fly in short low bursts.  True to form she took off running across the street with the entire family in hot pursuit.  We must have been a sight running around the block with a large fish net.  Finally Juliet took off, clearing a small tree and landing on the roof of a house one block over.  We all just stood there looking up at the roof.  We didn’t know the owners of the house and they didn’t seem to be home so we debated the penalty for climbing on someone’s roof without their permission. 

                My husband suddenly said he had an idea and disappeared down the street towards home.  When he came back he was carrying a double sided cage with Romeo in it.  He set it down on the front lawn with the empty side open and told everyone to be quiet.  Just then the homeowners drove up to see my entire family holding vigil in their front yard.  Needless to say it was a little awkward to explain but they seemed more amused than upset when they saw Juliet on their roof.  We all stood silently and waited.  Unbelievably Romeo started to call and Juliet answered.  She launched herself from the roof straight toward the cage.  She walked right in happy to be near Romeo again and we quickly shut the door behind her.  I will never forget that devoted pair and I don’t think our neighbors will either.

For The Birds or Oh Lucy 1

 

A memorable moment while building our quail egg business was hatching our first batch of 500 eggs.  Right on schedule tiny chirps were heard from our brand new incubator which we kept inside the house during the winter.  I opened the door and pulled out the screen covered hatching tray which held what looked like a living carpet of downy feathers.   Without thinking I lifted the cover and in a few seconds the living carpet became down covered popcorn as the overcrowded hatchlings began to propel themselves out of the tray and onto the floor. 

At that same moment our two bird dogs came careening down the hallway following the sound of the chirping. I couldn't close the door without sweeping the tiny quail to their deaths but I had to form some kind of barrier between them and the dogs. I sat down, slammed my feet against one side of the doorway and braced my back against the other forming a human fence with my legs.  I shouted whoa which should have stopped the dogs in their tracks but whoa, they did not.  They slowed to an aggressive forward creep until they were straining against my legs wild eyed and licking their chops at the sight of the scattering birds.

With one hand I managed to get the lid back on the tray between bird launches while adding a rail to my human fence with the other arm.  Then in one swift motion I grabbed the dogs by their collars, struggled to my feet and dragged them  to  the bathroom shutting the door.  I ran back, fell to my knees and started stuffing baby quail into my pockets and using the front of my shirt as a makeshift bag.  Thinking I had found them all, I moved  them to the garage grow out pens along with the remaining birds from the hatching tray. 

When I returned the dogs had calmed down and the house was quiet. Then I heard it: one tiny chirp. I tried to follow the sound but every time I moved it stopped.  I knew the baby bird would die quickly without heat and water so in desperation I released the dogs with the command “Find the birds”.  They ran to the incubator and half-heartedly pointed, looking at me as if to say, “Really?! You don’t know where the birds are?” Suddenly there was another tiny chirp.  It only took them a few seconds of recalculation before they were on full point staring at an old boot.  I rescued the bird from the toe of the boot and gave the dogs some treats just as my husband arrived home.  He asked how everything went and I just smiled and said “great!” To this day I believe the dogs were smirking as they walked away.