A typical day

When you are on a farm, there is the "routine stuff" and the "surprises" you deal with. When I tell people I breed and raise chickens, ducks, and quail, they think it's more of a hobby. I WISH! It's a job. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do, but it is a lot of work and I put a lot of devotion into what I do. 

There are days I walk into the quail room, look in a cage, and there is a rat snake engulfing my quail, there are other days when an alligator is in the pond, water mocassins (snakes) swimming in the creek or pond, or an entire garbage can is missing except the lid.

At night I look through the window and a raccoon is peeping right at me! Little spies I tell you, waiting for you to go to bed so they can be naughty!

A typical day consists of me waking up at 7am, letting the dogs out, inspecting the coops. The birds are ready to get out! They all wait at the door. The Marans are more patient, the ducks, however quack when they hear me coming.

What I do this early in the morning is let the birds out so they can free range during the day. I turn on the water spicket and while they are eating the bugs and what not, I collect the duck eggs and chicken eggs. It is less crowded this way.

I really love my Marans Chicken. They lay very dark, almost chocolate color eggs. I have Black Copper, Silver Cuckoo, and Golden Cuckoo Marans. The Black Coppers lay the darkest in my opinion. My other chickens are broody so they are tending chicks at the moment. The Marans are the only ones laying right now. The ducks lay a lot, but they bury them and I have to go digging to get an egg. If my Rouen duck sees me, immediately she starts burying the eggs even though she did not lay them.

I bring the eggs home after I collect and so the eggs can be shipped out. If I didn't sell them I would set them in my own incubator so I can sell day old chicks when ready.

I then do inventory and website updates, answer emails, the business part one would say. I also answer phone calls. If I have egg orders, I have to wrap and pack the orders to go. This is all done in the morning. 

In the afternoon, I look out the window. All the chicken are at the quail building, aka garage. It really sounds like they sit on the roof of the house and crow through the pipe/chimney thing we have. They wait for me to come out. I open the back door, they come running!


I go into the quail building and the first thing I do is collect water bottles and pile them up. It doesn't matter if the water bottles are half full or full. It's hot out and in. All birds are getting fresh cold water. Who wants to drink warm water?  Bacteria builds up and the bird gets sick. I do not need sick birds, especially if it can be prevented.

After I collect the water bottles, I have less in the way to collect my quail eggs. Now I have two rooms, a hatchery and brooder room and a quail room. This will change one day as I expand. But right now, this is all I have.

My hatchery and brooder room is what the title entails. I have incubators in this room as well brooders. I have quail brooders sitting on the shelves and there are larger brooders for the bigger babies when I have those hatch. I put pine shaving on the floor since I have older chicks living in there currently and it's easier to clean up after them that way.

What I do with the brooder/hatchery is move eggs from the incubator to the hatcher. 3 days prior to hatch, the eggs have to be moved to the hatcher so the chicks can position themselves to get ready to hatch. If they are still on the turner, problems can result, although I have had some babies "ride the turner" at times. Once I move the eggs to the hatcher, the eggs are in "lockdown" until 48 hours after the expected due date. It is not wise opening the hatcher each time you see a chick because cool air gets in disturbing the other chicks trying to hatch. Some may quit even because of this. Also, the chick absorbs enough yolk from the egg to sustain themselves nutrition wise for up to 48 hours. 

I always have a brooder clean and ready for the next batch. The chicks need a clean facility in order to not get sick or even die. Fresh water and food available at all times is a must for this little boogers.

Once I check on the hatcher/brooders, feed and water all the babies, I move on to the next room: The quail room. This room consists of my Chinese Blue Breasted (Button) Quail and Coturnix Quail. I am going to move the coturnix outdoors once I figure out an appropriate housing for them. For know they are indoors and happy.

Coturnix Breeders (more cages now)

Button Quail Breeders (more cages now ;))

Now is chow time. The Button quail and the Coturnix have a specific diet of Gamebird crumbles (NON MEDICATED). I mix oyster shell (ground) for added calcium. For the chicks (including chicken chicks, guineas, and ducklings) I feed them Gamebird crumbles blended to a fine consistency and add oyster shell for added calcium.

Now I fill ALL the water bottles and put them back onto the cages. 

The chickens await me. They are already waiting for their turn. I am greeted by chickens, ducks, and guineas. My peacocks are shouting their "HELP!" "HELP!" sound from their pen.

The Chickens, ducks, guineas, and peafowl get a half and half combination of Gambird crumbles, Eggmaker layer diet, and any table scraps we have. When the birds see my red wagon, it's mayhem!

It is already 5:00pm. I have been working for a good 7 hours. I have been also answering phone calls from customers and those with questions about their birds. It's time to bring in the birds to the coop for the night. I have one hen that comes at 6:15pm on the dot, but that is easy. I come out around that time and she will be waiting at the door of the coop. 

I need to work on installing perches. I have an old dog cage in each pen and I use wooden planks that I hose down. The Marans love to roost on it. The silkies are in the second pen. The ducks and cochins are in the third pen. The guineas live with the Marans. They are pretty tame little guys.

The ducks are in two cliques. I have the originals and then the "princessess" Sammy and Madison my crested Pekin Pair. They are always the last to come to their pen because they are "oh so special" in their little minds.

Now for Sammy and Madison....They are a riot!

First they come (half an hour later)

"Should we return?" 

Finally entering the pen...sigh

At 6:15pm, Number 14 comes to the coop so I can lock her up. I then can turn on the electricity and the birds are protected for the night...What a day! 

The end of the day is the most entertaining for me as I have done all the heavy work (think of the days when I have to clean the cages???!!!!) and I get to take my time, smell the roses and enjoy the birds. This is not an easy job, believe me it isn't, especially for one individual. However, I wouldn't trade it for the world. It is my passion and I am sticking to it.

Stella

It was April 2006, I was having a rough day, I do not know why, I just was. I did not want to get out of bed first of all. I have been wanting to sleep all day lately. It must be the gloomy Oregon weather we have been having. Raining everyday, cool days but wet. Walking to class was wet rat mess because I would just get up, get dressed and by the time I get to class, wet and soaked. The umbrella didn't help much. If I rode my bike, the wind and rain got me. Oregon weather was a musty rain as usual but walkable from the apartment. I was heading towards my Avian Embryology Lab at Dryden.

Now, Dryden Hall  is an old building, the old Poultry building actually. Sadly there is no new poultry building. James Dryden was the head of the Poultry Department at the Oregon Agricultural College, which was renamed Oregon State University, for 14 years. He came to the college in 1908, having been selected by Dr. W. J. Kerr to head this department. There is another building called the Kerr Administration Building. It's actually quite entertaining how names come into play. James Dryden was renowned for his research which laid the foundation of modern poultry breeding science. He produced a the world's first 300-egg (a year) hen and the first hen to lay 1000 eggs in a life-time. One he named Lady McDuff but I do not remember how many eggs that hen laid. Dryden was credited in Oregon with starting the escalated commercial egg industry. This building has a lot of history behind it, however I have only been to a couple rooms. The Vet school offices are located there, the poultry lab, an egg storage room, and a room with some ancient cabinet incubators (they worked very well though :))

I sat down at my lab bench, exhausted as ever. thank goodness it was another hatch day so I got to play with chicks. I also got to break open eggs once again for the ones that didn't hatch. My professor, who is now a dear friend of mine,  brought out a surprise. He took out a hatcher full of tiny tiny birds. They were Japanese Coturnix chicks, day olds, stripped little bumble bees (this was before I saw a button quail chick). They were so tiny! There were hundreds of them. They looked like mice moving around in the hatcher. My professor picked one up and tossed me one. I was not expecting this so I frantically stumbled across the lab bench, almost falling off the end catching this little thing. My professor told the class that it looks like I have a new pet. I sure did because I fell in love with this little one.


I texted my friend, who was at work at the time, telling her the news. She texted back "You've got to be kidding me!" She was worried I was going to get kicked out of the apartment as I already accumulated many pets as is. Plus a quail would be considered a farm animal. It all worked out though.


When Lab was over, I stuck the little bird in my sweatshirt pocket, the pocket in front where you can stick your hands in when cold. I also had my cell phone in there. 


I walked over to the vet school where my friend worked as well as myself. My co-workers stared at me as each step I took "chirped." I showed my friend the bird and she was still not happy. I tried to ignore the situation and grabbed my pharmacy cart (I was the stocker), and started stocking. I forgot the the phone was in the pocket and it moved and I no longer heard chirping.


I was pretty sure I squished my little bird with the phone. Now I should have gone through the thought process...take phone out and then stick bird in pocket...I walked back to my friend and was about to cry because I thought I killed the bird. I took out the bird. My friend showed me the bird was ok. He was just getting cold in actuality. I finished work and walked outside and called my parents to tell them about the bird. They were psyched as usual as I always wanted quail. 


I was planning to walk to the feed store to get my baby his/her food but my friend got off work so she took me. We got my baby his Gamebird starter 30% protein in a 5 pound back at Denson's Feed Store. We then drove to petco and got him/her a 10 gallon tank, heat lamp, bedding, little dishes. I was all ready to raise my little baby.


Now I needed a name. I was watching Gilmore Girls at the time on DVD. There was an episode when Rory brings home a science project which was a chick. Her mom, Lorelei names it Stella. While Rory was out of the town, the chick got loose. Lorelei tears the house apart and shouts out "STELLA!!!" No use, so she calls her "friend" Luke to help her find her chick. Under different intentions he comes over and they enventually gets Stella back in the cage. It was a funny episode and definitely fits my bird, as I did later on have those moments with my Stella, I still do.

Stella  April 26, 2006

One Day Old

2 days

8 grams!!! 2 Days old

3 Days Old

4 Days

Brutus and Stella

6 Days

9 Days...Stella also started crowing...sounds like a Klingon

I got Stella a playpen so he can run around and not get stepped on.

Stella Dustbathing

Stella on his throne. 12 Days old

  When Stella was 13 days old, he "flew" out of his pen and got his leg caught. He got out out of the contraption BUT he was dragging his leg. I called the avian veterinan in town. I explained that I had a baby bird that hurt his leg. They asked me what type of birds and it was and I said my pet 13 day old quail. This would be their first quail patient. They  insisted to bring Stella in.  

Stella fractured his distal tibia and would have to be in a cast for awhile...My poor 13 day old quail

    The Healing process begins...

13 days Old and resting :(

Stella's Leg healed thankfully. He did break his toe afterwards because Brutus stepped on it. So he has a crooked toe now...

Stella was growing larger and larger by the day. At 6 weeks of age he was fully mature and started courting everything in his path: feet, dogs, dog toys, you name it :) It was time to build him something to live in. My mom shipped me from Illinois my guinea pig's old cage. I bought some chloroplast and made him a little castle. I admit, I spoiled the bird. 

I introduced a female to Stella as well. She was also a wild. Her name was already given to her, Tara. They were were a happy couple. I added some enrichment to their castle.

                                                                                          Tara

                                                                                 Stella and Tara (Stella on right)

After graduation, my parents and I drove from Oregon to Illinois and then Illinois to Florida with all the animals, including the quail. It was a very stinky drive, especially since it was summer. The males (I was traveling with 5 quail along with other pets) were crowing on the road, females making their laying sounds. It was an interesting trip. 

                                                      All of the caged animals packed up in Illinois

Because I wanted to raise quail, I decided to house the Coturnix quail outdoors. My mistakes however were that the pens had too big holes and racoons killed my coturnix. Tara was a victim. The birds that survived were moved into the garage. Stella was a survivor but he was horribly injured. I thought  I lost him. His wing was completely pulled off. My mom and I had to devise a simple solution to keep him secure. We brought him inside. He has been inside ever since.

Stella is 4 years old now, still strong and kicking. Still breeding  INDOORS. He actually lives in my bedroom with a girlfriend named Cinderella. I am working on a project with those two since I got some nifty quail chicks from them.  Stella limps, has a crooked toe, and only has one wing, but he is a survivor. 

The white area is a feather, he has no wing on this side. It's a stump if you feel it. Poor thing :(

                                                             

 

                                                                      The better side :) 

Even though Stella is a bit disadvantaged, I still have to act out the scene from Gilmore Girls at times. Of course he will always respond with a crow somewhere....when in doubt shout out "STELLA!!!!!!!!!"

The Beginning for my Love for Poultry

My passion for poultry did not start when I was little. I wanted to be a veterinarian for a long time. I went to Oregon State University to pursue this dream.

I started Oregon State University studying Animal Sciences with only a pre-vet option. There are many options within this major. Animal Sciences is a section of the College of Agricultural Sciences.

Classes were not as I expected. I was under a lot of stress with the basic science classes such as Biology, Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, Biochemistry, Physics, mathematics such as Calculus (I like math so this was not a huge deal but a lot of work). There were the required classes by the University, and the classes for the Animal Sciences major, included those for the pre-vet option.

As my freshman year zoomed by, I still wanted to be a veterinarian, mainly because it was my parents' expectation of me and I had no clue what my options were. I needed to pick two industry classes as prerequisites for the more advance classes. The first one was easy, Companion Animals. The second one, not so much. Looking through the options I had: Equine (hmm, horses are cool but I don't know much about them), Swine/sheep: (It just does not fit me, I want to be an exotic veterinarian, not a farmer), Cattle (Cows?), lastly, there was poultry. I thought to myself "I want to be an exotic veterinarian specializing in the avian species, this could work. " I signed up for the Introduction to Poultry Science. It was an introduction class. We learned little by little really to prepare us for the advanced classes. I did come back to the dorms smelling like chicken after some visits to farms.

One farm required the class to wear plastic booties over our shoes. It is Oregon so it obviously was rainy weather. I was wearing a sweatshirt, jeans, no change of clothes...the owner of the farm gave us the booties for biosecurity purposes and warned us to be careful because the grounds are wet. I was doing so well until I saw the free-range chicken, and did not watch where I was walking and slipped on chicken poop. It was all over my butt and down my jeans. People saw me but what I did was slip, got up, and continued my way. I took my sweatshirt off and wrapped it over my butt area so the poop didn't show so much. I saw my professors giggle a bit. I was not a farmer, but I sure was clumsy.

Since I completed all the required prerequisites, I needed to take some industry courses as the years progressed. I decided to add the poultry option to my degree, since it was bird related after all. I was getting more and more interested in poultry though. I took a 2 day seminar at the vet school on poultry diseases. I took an egg production class and then a poultry production class (basically processing birds). I had to go to the brooder (it was a large brooder) before work every morning and observe the birds before they were taken off to slaughter.

The class that really changed my life dream was my Avian Embryo Class which was a combination of lectures and labs. We learned about genetics, genetic disorders, theories behind genetics, embryology. We incubated chicken eggs from various stages and broke open the eggs to see the development of the embryos, dissecting them and analyzing if there were any deformities present.

I loved the lab, because occasionally we opened the hatcher and saw baby chicks. Many people in my class have already owned chickens so they were not very excited and were texting on their cell phones or chattering amongst peers. I was waiting to see the chicks!

Holding the Hatcher (2006)

I was so excited when I pulled out the hatcher from the incubator. 3 out of 4 eggs hatched! The fourth egg was a late dead so we opened it up. This was my first hatch ever! And the beginning of many. I took sheep classes as well but the poultry stuck to me. I really have a passion for these birds and I want to continue that passion.

It's 2010 and I have a Poultry farm. Me? I actually live on a farm? yep! I raise quails, chicken, and ducks. I am gamebird licensed and an NPIP participant. I would have never imagined myself doing this but I am extremely happy in what I do and nothing can change that.

ME!