They quail were happily living in their new home and I just love to listen to their sweet songs. Time to roll out Phase 2 of my plan. Trust me, I have a plan. See, the whole thing with the ducks was that we wanted eggs, but we also wanted meat. I much prefer chicken, but my little flock is part of the family, and there will be no baby chicks because there is no rooster. That's why we went with ducks. Male ducks are no more noisy than female ducks, which, as it turns out, are kind of noisy. Although I would have loved and cared for my ducks, once they were gone I didn't want to replace them with more ducks. It was a failed endeavor, so I scrapped that plan and came up with another. Quail will lay eggs with no males present, but they will also breed readily, or so I have read. We are still waiting. My quail flock was about a mix of male and female so the plan was to split them into breeding groups of one male to two females and, gosh I hate to say this but we'll probably eat the extra males. Sounds harsh, I know, but I eat meat every day and I think it would be hypocritical of me to balk at killing and eating animals I raised. The fly in this ointment is that domesticated quail rarely set on their own eggs. The eggs must be incubated, or set under a foster mother.
Phase 2: Silkies. Doing research online I found that overall, Silkies were thought to be the best foster parents for hatching the eggs of other birds. There were a few other choices such as Cochins, but since quail eggs are so small, I thought Silkie Bantams would make more sense, plus they are super cool looking and have a reputation of being very sweet birds. Time to get some Silkies! Of course, mid-Fall is not the best time to order day old chicks. And there is only on place that offers sexed day-old Silkies, My Pet Chicken. No problem, really, because that's where my lil chicken flock came from and besides having an amazing selection of chicks, they are super nice and give great customer service. As Fate would have it, just about the only chicks available in November were Blue Silkies. After my experience with not being able to tell the ducks apart, I would have preferred to order a variety of chick colors, but since that was not possible I felt the next best solution was to order the Blue. Having ordered three Blue Polish chicks for my lil chicken flock, I knew that they can turn out looking quite different from one another, and with the Silkies, it would be even more so. There were color variations, as well as possibilities for different crests and beards.
Two weeks later I was picking up a peeping box at my local Post Office. So exciting! The chicks were incredibly adorable. They were so tiny and fuzzy. I got them all set up in their nice warm brooder and just stared at them most of the afternoon. The first day they sleep a lot, but it's still hilarious to me. They will just fall asleep, mid action. So cute. That night, I noticed something was a little off. One of the chicks seemed to have a hurt leg. It wasn't as active as the other babies and was having a hard time getting around to the food and water. I knew that chicks can live for a few day without food, it's what makes them perfect for mail order, but soon this baby was going to need to be able to feed itself. The next morning I called MPC to ask them what I should do and they were super helpful providing me with information sources, but basically my only option was to try some home remedies and let Nature take it's course. I tried stretching the leg to get the tendon back into place, to no avail. I tried to splint it but the chick freaked out. I tried to isolate the chick but it wasn't having any of that either. It seemed like my attempts to aid the chick were only causing it pain and stress so I just decided to back off and hope that it would get right on its own. I was beside myself with worry over this chick, meanwhile I was eating chicken for dinner. It made me feel even worse.
The chicks were two weeks old Monday and the injured bird is still hanging on. It is terrified of me. I really wanted these chickens to trust me and be very comfortable around me, after all I need them to adopt my quail eggs and hatch them as their own. I chose them for their loving personalities, but they are scared whenever I put my hand into their cage. I'm hoping this fear will fade once they realize the food they eat comes from me. It's a great way to win over just about any creature.
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