Turning on the Christmas lights!

Marigold

Marigold

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i've just been given one of these as a birthday present http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00158GSOS/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=poultrykeeperforum-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=B00158GSOS
which I hope will encourage my quail into lay. They were too young to lay in September when I got them, and since then of course the light has decreased past the critical level. There's no mains electricity where I keep them so I hope this will be a cheap and sustainable solution - the alternative was a much more expensive solar panel + less flexible extra wiring. You can have the LED lights on full or half the array, very bright even on half, doesn't heat up and waste power. Only drawback is that it's manuaIly switched so I shall have to go down at 10.00 to turn them off at bedtime, but hey, the dog has to be let out then anyway.

I wondered if anyone else uses something similar, and with what success? At that price I might get another for the hens, once the solstice has passed and they've all done mouilting. however I was also given a copy of 'Quail past and present,' by Michael Roberts, http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0947870121/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=poultrykeeperforum-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=0947870121 which looks to be an excelklent little book with lots of useful advice for newbies like me, including advice to increase artificial light levels gradually, by 30 mins extra per week, to avoid shocking the quail and even driving them into moult! I might not have realised that, had been planning to give them longer than that to begin with. Anybody else read it?
 
Hello! I have 3 japenese quails, Kevin, sharon&tracey! I have the same problem, I got them in september & not a single egg. I use the little solar panel lights but not bright enough. Is your light working? Any eggs yet? That book sounds good, I will have to purchase. Mine just on crumb, not sure what to treat them with? Xxx
 
Yes I've been putting it on half power from 3-45 onwards and have now worked it up to off at 8-45.- I have to set my kitchen timer so I don't forget to turn it off. I've been moving it on by about 15 mins per night as it didn't seem to be hurting them or making them moult. It would obviously be better to have it on a time switch and switch it on early in the morning so they experience a natural dimming at bedtime rather than a sudden blackout, but I can't do that at present. No eggs yet, but the birds look plump and healthy and i'm only up to about 13 hours of light at present.

From what I've read quail need a higher protein food than hens, around 20% is ideal. This is because a quails egg is about 10% of her body weight against about 3% for a hen, and a greater proportion of it is yolk, so it takes more resources to produce. I'm giving mine Garvo Alfachick, which is a very nice mixture of small seeds and grains plus little dried shrimpy bits and some high-protein mini-pellets. I also give them a sprinkling of dried mealworms each day, which are high protein and they go mad for these. another good mix is Brinvale Robin food, which is similar to the Garvo stuff I think. (see https://www.brinvale.com/Wild_Bird_Food_Mixes/Wild_Bird_Food_Mixes/Brinvale_Robin_Insect_Wild_Bird_Food__1607.html ) I got some along with my autumn order for wild bird food as postage is free if your order is over 10kg in weight. I'm also mixing in some Garvo layers pellets, as most people feed these to their birds though the protein is lower than the ideal, I think, being suited to hens. Anyway, the mix I've got looks quite interesting and they seem to like it.
 
Just ordered my supplies thank you! What a great website! I have the robin food&meal worms arriving. It's hard to find a shop around here that sells such things. Mine look plump & healthy too. Am looking to buy a light like yours, will have to set the kitchen timer too. Will do gently! Thank you for all your help do appreciate, you helped me with my 3 young Pekins also x x x
 
The only drawback with those lights is that they don't have a light to indicate when they're fully charged, and also they say don't leave charging for more than 12 hours or you'll damage the battery. So I'm just giving mine a few hours after breakfast ready for the evening switch-on 15 mins before sunset, which is currently about 4.00.

There are several people on here like you and me, Katy-may, who are beginners at keeping quail, and it's going to be very interesting and useful if we can all keep posting our progress and ideas - it should be an interesting year ahead if we all keep in touch, especially if we start incubating in the Spring. And maybe somebody will come along with some real experience and tell us all how to do it - I certainly hope so!

Glad the pekins are doing well - they're such lovely little birds, aren't they?
 
It is going to be extremely useful for us all if everyone enjoys their love of quails on here, mine are in the greenhouse for the winter enjoying their dirt baths. They actually use the little duck house in there, but prefer to nest in their huge straw bed in the corner!! Thank you for tips on light!
The Pekins are sat on my shoulder for play time as I type this! Super lovely birds, and there is nothing better than knowing I started their little lives in a incubator. Really sentimental about them, can you tell!! How many quails do you have? X
 
They do love to dustbath, don't they? My cage has a plastic box full of dry sand, which I sieve daily to remove the shavings that have got in there, and somebody immediately pops back in when I replace it and really has a good go under her arms!

I got 8 quail back in September when they were 3-4 weeks old. At first I had 2 groups of 1 male + 3 females, as the breeder said this was the best ratio - enough females so the male didn't wear them out, but not too many for him to fertilise. I got one all-brown cage and one cage with 3 cream girls and a beautiful golden boy, more like a canary than a quail to look at. Puberty arrived, and he set about it very vigorously, but sadly was found lying dead in the cage one day. Breeder said maybe he'd been overdoing it and had a heart attack - she said 'his father was a bit of a rapist as well.' Great ending, though! The other boy not interested in the girls - Michael Roberts says they don't breed when it's cold, (and who can blame them?) So ATM I'm just sort of priming them with extra light, ready for the off after Christmas, I hope. I've got all 7 in one big cage in the summerhouse and I put the light horizontally on top of the wire on the cage, shining down. The new cages will have vertical wire fronts, so I shall have to work out a way of hanging it up. i hope F.Xmas will come up with an inci - (there may be trouble if he doesn't!) so if they're not producing fertile eggs in Jan I shall have a trial go with some ebay eggs. Have you got a quail egg insert for your inci? The little Brinsea one I've earmarked will do half a dozen or so hens eggs and up to 12 quails, with a special tray to fit them as they're smaller. I'm not interested in breeding large numbers, I'd rather have several goes and learn as I go along, though there will be 6 large new quail cages when we've finished their new house, so I shall have to come up with a few to make my dear husband's work all worthwhile! I'd love to try chicks but wouldn't have the room or the need for more hens, so quail are a good species to try instead.
 
Oh your poor boy dying, but could have been a worse death! My boy not interested in the girls either! I had a brinsea 40 egg incubator but as I don't want any more babies this time of year I have given it back to the local farmer. Brinsea are the best ones, although they don't do humidity like one of the other brands like r-com. I found that was the hardest to control in the brinsea. I had my pekin batam eggs from eBay, lovely lady & 5/6 were fertile. Would you let a broody quail sit on her eggs? Or buy eggs&put under her? You are lucky having a helpful husband! Mine just tuts but let's me get on with my passion! The kids love them all too! X
 
On the subject of light - You need a certain level of light, hitting the pituitary gland (in the back of the eye to stimulate and release the hormone that causes egg production). This kind of lighting may not be bright enough? I'm not sure but it needs to be reasonably high around the area they are kept.

Personally, I don't add additional lighting to any of my birds (and chickens are the same as Quail in this respect I guess).

There are reasons for and against lighting birds over winter, but my reasoning against artificial lighting is that birds are born with a certain number of eggs internally, so you're just changing when you get these eggs by providing lighting - useful commercially of course if you need to get as much out of a hen in the first 18 months of her life. If you increase the length of an egg laying cycle, then it's putting an extra strain on her and if it's not controlled correctly, or the light fails, they may suddenly stop laying and go into moult when other hens are in peak production.

In pullets, when they first start to lay at this time of year, they will lay small eggs - but if you can hold them off from laying until the spring, you may be waiting longer for eggs but their eggs will be bigger as their bodies will be more developped. You get fewer prolapse problems too.

I guess it would be similar for Quail - when they are not laying, they are still developping internally and when they do lay in the spring, they should give you some lovely big eggs (if you can call Quail eggs 'big'!)

As Leslie Bonnet put it in his book 'Practical Duck Keeping' in 1960 "In the Spring, even the sparrows lay"
 
Yes, my gut instinct is with you on this, Tim, especially as far as the hens are concerned - it just doesn't seem fair to keep them up late in the cold winter evenings when they have to live out of doors in the cold winter weather. I've only got one hen laying out of 4 ATM, but I don't mind, I'm just glad to see them obviously fit and happy pecking around in the garden and doing OK. I don't seem to be getting anywhere with lighting the quail either - I think they have a much shorter lifespan than chickens, don't they? and I've not been sure whether they can usefully wait until they get 14 hours of natural light, which will be not until March, by which time they'll be 7 months old - will they be middle-aged by then? The breeder I got them from says she doesn't usually use them for breeding after they are 6 months old, but hers come into lay much earlier, at 7-10 weeks. (There are so many things I don't know yet about them, that the books don't think to mention!)
Probably I shall gradually decrease the light in the evenings, so as not to shock them with too sudden a change, and then just keep this batch as pets and try incubating some e-bay eggs in the Spring as well.
 
Well my chooks have their own christmas lights in their run! :D

Will take a photo when set up this year! :D :D
 
I can see them standing round in a circle round the tree, practising their carols, especially On the First Day of Christmas, with all those partridges and calling birds and French hens, whatever they are, and swans a-swimming and geese a-laying (but maybe not at this time of the year!)
 
I'm no expert on Quail - I had them when I was a teenager and that's about it...

Spring is naturally the time for birds to lay eggs and it's common for us 'bill payers' to moan about the shortage of eggs now... but in reality it's nearly the shortest day and after that, with increasing daylight hours, before you know it we'll be seeing lots of eggs and the signs of birds breeding which was ultimately the idea of the egg inthe first place. The rest is good for them, birds were never really supposed to produce eggs all the year 'round.
 
I had a small 24Led light in greenhouse when they first arrived, had a few eggs (3) then assumed didn't need. No eggs for ages. Have had the light back in past week& found a egg tonight! The light I now switch off at 8pm & it is directed straight at their straw bed, so must be working better. Plus have their robin food which may have made difference?! X
 
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