Meet the Quail

I can’t really say when I got the bird raising bug, or tell you how long I have wanted quail, but I sometime over the past ten years, I started dreaming and scheming plans to raise these little game birds. Maybe it was the delicious speckled quail eggs I always picked up at Morning Glory Farm on my way out to the coast, or maybe it was the free rustic chicken coop a friend gave me that was too small for a decent number of chickens. However it came about, it’s been a plan for a while. I even had the little coop set up outside my kitchen window at the farmhouse in Elmira so that when I got my quail, I could look out at them while I was at the sink washing dishes. There the coop sat with the upheaval of life, divorce and a move until this Spring when I started getting set up for my chickens. I figured, heck, if I was going to work on one coop why not go for both, so I hauled the quail coop out to the farm, set it up with an unused chicken run given to me by some friends, and got to work stapling up lots of fine mesh chicken wire.

Building projects do not come easily to me, and they go along rather slow, but I think all in all I did a fine job. And while I can’t look out at it from my kitchen window, I look out at it from my main window and balcony along with the greenhouse, garden and chicken coop. What a view!

Finally, quail day came, and that hot July evening, I took my kids out to the home of a local real estate agent who raises quail for training birding dogs as his secondary gig. He took us out to the biggest aviary I’d ever seen, filled with hundreds of fluttering quail. With a bit of finagling, he netted ten females and two males and put them in our cat carrier. I handed him a check, and drove off with my quail and a dream finally made real.

I must report that little wild chickens they are not. As domestic as these birds are, they are also very much not domestic. They were a bit flighty and skittish at first, exploding in a burst of wings and feathers all over the coop every time someone walked by,  but after a few days they settled down and I began finding these tiny, perfect eggs nestled in the grass around the run. We’ve been enjoying mini fried eggs and hardboiled snacks. They still have their freak-outs when I go in the coop, but they have become fewer and farther between. I’m hoping to socialize them a bit more over time.

When my windows are open in the morning, I can hear the soft little cooing noises they make and I am so glad they are here. I discovered they love blueberries and greens for a treat. Yes, it’s true, quail love kale.

Now that it is well established that I am a crazy chicken lady and a crazy quail lady, we shall see where my barnyard bird raising aspirations will lead. I still dream of geese, ducks and turkeys, but they may all be farther down the road. For now, I’m happy to have my own little farm on a farm, and lots of tasty little eggs.