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Jan. 27, 2007
Quail Babies, Pt 2
I got a much better digital camera! My son's dad upgraded his and gave me his perfectly good old one. I can FINALLY start my online craft business like I've wanted to. I have sooo much to update about...
We had an AWESOME vacation at DisneyWorld last weekend, about which I'll have to post later because it was really amazing. Plus, my mother took all the pictures and she hasn't posted them yet. But for now, here is an update of the three remaining quail babies. Four hatched, but the last one hatched two days after the other one, and being "runty," was pecked to death by the mother :( What a shame. He was so cute and fluffy but he was slower on the uptake. I'm told that mother quails cull the sick, lame, etc. as a way to sort of save herself the trouble of raising a baby who will not make it. Thank God people - well, most people - aren't like that!!
They spend most of their time under her butt. LOL I know that's a funny thing to say, but newborn quails require temperatures of 99 degrees farenheit, with their ability to tolerate lower temperatures increasing weekly. So they stay under her butt. it's how she keeps them warm. LOL I picked her up the other day to clean out their cage and she was really warm and her rump and belly ruddy under her feathers. I think it's increased bloodflow to enable her to keep the babies warm. How neat!
Alas, I have kept them separate from Lucky, the daddy. He was raised by himself for a long time and I think he wasn't really properly "socialized." He is very friendly with me, for example, which is actually totally abnormal quail behavior - the other ones flee in terror whenever they see me. I had to separate him from Lilo just to let her brood on her eggies in the first place. He kept chasing her off the nest. I tried to put him back in with them yesterday and he immediately went to pecking at the babies so... he is staying separate for now.
This is Lucky, who has really unusual colors and is really gorgeous and has really unusual coloring:
I am definitely getting him a bigger cage this weekend, seeing as he's all by himself right now, poor boo. He is very aggressive with other quails, since he didn't see any until he was about 5 weeks old. I had purchased 10 eggs to incubate as a science experiment, but thanks to my grandmother, messing with what she shouldn't have, we had an incubator temperature mishap and he was the only one who survived. Hence the name. :)
The babies are a little over a week old right now and still totally adorable and fluffy. Here is a picture of one - I think this one is Edison. PJ named them Sunshine (one with bright yellow head), Valentine (one with red wings - a male, I think, and hopefully with Lucky's beautiful colors - and Edison, his current favorite historical figure.
Here he is peeking out from under the little log cave that they like to play in. Just for reference's sake, the egg in the far right corner that Lilo has laid (it is almost certainly infertile - they just lay eggs all the time) is about the size of a nickel. :) |
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