Farm life
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: animal care
What a week...We raise ducks but bartered for more in hopes of turning over some quick cash. So now we technically have most of the endangered farm ducks out there. Sadly our van broke down the day of the swap and we never made it. Hoping next week will go better I am preparing to make animal treats and Lye soap to take with me.
The jeep may be back up and running, we have not tried to drive it yet. We have dumped a lot into it, but I think in the end it will work out for the best. Classic cars require work, so what you gonna do?
I found a newer jeep for $800.00 and have considered buying it. I could trade the Cadillac for it maybe or even the Buick, it's hard to decide.
Money as always is tight and we make the best of it all, trying to make things last as long as we can.

We acquired quail a couple of weeks ago and they seem to be doing very well. They are Cortinex Quail and lay about 300 eggs a year or so...not to shabby there, plus they go from hatch to laying in 7 or 8 weeks. They are tiny but fast and easy to raise, I give them a thumbs up. You may be asking your self what in the world are these little quail good for, well I will tell you. You can hunt them as they get flight feathers faster than bob whites. You can eat them yourself or sell them to restaurants or even sell them to a game farm...they go for around $2.00 each at hatch. You can sell their eggs for .15 each fertile or not (some people eat them. I saw fresh quail eggs on line for $9.00 for 6 eggs. I know crazy but true. They require very little food compared to a chicken and their eggs hatch at about 17 days. They do not set eggs well. So it is best to take their eggs away a few times a day. The biggest problem I can see is that they are like the size of a bumble bee when born and can drown them selves in nearly non existent water. Other than that they are great.
We have a big sportsman incubator and I am guessing you could do thousands of these eggs at a time if you had them. I have a small flock at the moment only 4 hens and two cock. I ordered another 4 hens and two more cocks but it will be a while on them. I get between two and three eggs a day from the ones I have (about 18 eggs a week) but it’s a good start. I figure I will keep a third of each hatch for breading stock. So with the 12 birds I should get 36 eggs a week. I plan to buy 6 birds from the breeder ever 2 weeks until I hit 100. With that I figure I should get 80 eggs a day or better and be fairly well set. 560 eggs a week would give me eggs to pickle for our use as well as sell and barter goods. I would have plenty to hatch and plenty to eat. In theory you could make un- believable money with them if you did it right. One of our friends in trying to talk us into raising them for slaughter, but in truth I think that is a lot of work for the return. I can get $2.00 each at the swap for the little guys with no effort, why would I want to have to clean them to make a quarter more per bird. You know…
I have about given up on hatching chickens for sale, yes there is some money to be made but people are fickle and the cost of feed high. I do better with ducks, geese, turkeys and the quail. I still want to buy Peacocks and hope to have some soon…ducks you can get $5.00 a chick all day long, geese I get $7.00 each and turkey’s $7.00 and than of course the $2.00 for the quail. I plan to get $25.00 for baby peacocks. We have talked about getting swans in the future. You can get an incredible $200.00 for each chick or $800.00 per full grown pair. For now we need to create new and better pens for our bird and get ourselves a bit better established.

Anyway have to go and make soap so I can afford to become bird rich, lol…

Oh our website is www.goldendovegallery.org incase you are trying to find us...

Big hug from Shekhinah, Michael and the kids and critters here on Mahanaim Farm.