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Post by okie on Jul 8, 2019 8:06:46 GMT -6
I have bobwhite chicks coming this week. I have raised quite a few over the years. Last year I turned out about fifty mostly by accident. My local population does seem much stronger this year but I doubt many of the ones I turned out naturalized. Anyone have any real success with stocking them? I plan to keep most of these confined and turn birds out every year. I thought about getting a few banty hens and letting them raise them but I'm open to better suggestions.
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Post by hughespieds on Jul 8, 2019 12:10:20 GMT -6
When I was raising quail I bit the bullet and bought an incubator and separate hatcher. Every 8 or 10 days I would add more fertile eggs to the incubator. Built myself a large brooder where they stayed for a couple of weeks, then would move them to pens. I had lots of them escape and even freaked out my across the road neighbor because he found one and didn't know what it was.
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Post by okie on Jul 8, 2019 12:18:33 GMT -6
I have an incubator. I modified it to hatch queen cells for my bee operation but it can still do eggs. My concern is raising them wild enough that they will naturalize a little better. I was thinking letting the banty hens raise them out in the yard might help with that. Usually habitat is the limiting factor but I don't think that's the case here as there's about five hundred acres next door that is an abandoned mine with tons of cover.
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Post by Jake on Jul 8, 2019 13:38:55 GMT -6
I know some folks have luck using surogators with pheasants and quail so that they grow up in more natural cover. Wouldn't hurt to band some to see if you have any that make it over to the next year so you can track whether you've had any success or not.
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Post by jehosofat on Jul 8, 2019 13:50:51 GMT -6
I been thinking of buying some and turning them loose on the farm. There is a guy that raises them about 30 miles from me, he has em in these huge nets that are about 50 feet tall and 600 feet long. He has dogs that he turns in there to make them learn to fly from predators. He claims he has pretty good success turning them loose in the wild.
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Post by talltimber on Jul 8, 2019 15:33:54 GMT -6
I wish you luck. Send some pics of them as they mature. I like everything about them. They have beautiful plumage, their calls are music to my ears, they are a great game bird, and awesome fried for breakfast with gravy and biscuits.
Unfortunately. I don’t have a successful restocking story to tell you. Saying goes, if that place would hold birds, it would already have some on it. Again, good luck. Maybe my example really didn’t have a very good farm, or too many predators.
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Post by okie on Jul 8, 2019 15:44:41 GMT -6
their calls are music to my ears, They bring back a lot of memories for me. I grew up in California, no bobwhites there, but my granddad on my moms side was from East Texas. He raised birds of all kinds and sold them all across the country. The bobwhites were never for sale and he kept them next to his garden so we could hear them while we worked. When I came and looked at property around five years ago one of the first things I asked the realtor was if there were quail in the area. I might at some point raise some California quail but I'd hate for them to get loose here where they're not native so I need to plan my setup a little better first. |
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