Flora Eerschay

Hi Nicholas! Living in the Sonora desert must be a magical experience. When I was in Mexico I watched a movie titled "The Devil's Highway" (2018), about people who are forced to travel across Sonora desert. But we travelled to other states so I didn't get anywhere near, to see it in real life.
If you're keeping quail in that climate, I guess the heat might be the biggest challenge. You can create shaded cooler spots for them to cool down. They like to dig a hole under a little hutch like this one in the picture. It can have moist sand or soil inside and be shaded during the hot days, or have a lot of hay and straw under and over it, to keep them warm in winter. Their feet aren't as strong as chicken feet so I help them to rearrange the bedding every morning. Those gloves with claws are a perfect tool for that, in my opinion.
Shipping baby quails is also dangerous to them, and then there is stress in the new place... if you have a male and two females, I would collect hatching eggs from them and raise my own. There are incubators for just 20-30 eggs if you don't need to hatch more. They grow very fast and are super cute to watch. They will have a chance to get used to you and your environment from day one, and no shipping means much less stressful sitiuations.

It's zone 7b, so not terribly cold, but the garden can definitely freeze to the ground. The aviary has a shade cloth and a waterproof tarp, and "screens" along the bottom, which are parts of a modular cage. I still have enough parts to reassemble the modular cage indoors, in case of emergency. Quails should be fine if they're protected from wind and rain/snow (don't get wet). The aviary is also surrounded by a fence that protects it from larger creatures, like dogs or careless humans, and that fence blocks some wind and cold too. I added a transparent tarp on the west side, from which the strongest cold winds usually come. Then filled it with ginormous piles of straw and hay. Quails love hay. There may be an egg lost somewhere in all that hay, because I found one less today...
Here is a picture of Ramen the roo, looking forward to winter!
According to the deep litter method, the idea is to keep adding stuff on top of that, maybe even until spring.

Ra, you know you're a permie when you're happy that the nettles are regrowing! :D
I now use mine to make a "tea" for my quails, instead of regular water, when the weather is bad. They love it.

Jay, that's interesting, I don't think any of my quail will ever go broody... I'm planning to collect hatching eggs from them in December. They may stop laying earlier, so I hope to trick them by bringing them inside to a warm room with enough "day" hours. A broody hen would save me a lot of work in the early days I guess... that seems to be rare in their case, but they do start to show more natural instincts now that they live in the aviary, for example the roo brings "gifts" to the hens.

Burra, that sounds scary... my aunt also has health issues that will require her to have three surgeries... her diet is now very limited too, mostly white bread and cheese. Fortunately she can eat meat, so I hope she gets enough vitamins.
A murder case - how scary! Some people feel safer in cities for this kind of reasons, but to me, less crowded areas seem safer, at least I know most of the people... my neighbour found a dead body earlier this year. The police didn't really identify who it was and we think they abandoned the case...

I've been watching that girl from Portugal on youtube and the fire was so close to her land! Only the smoke reached her but that can be toxic... at leat that area is safe now, I think?

Riona, congratulations, I don't grow cucumbers or any water-needy plants anymore :D I decided to be stubborn and only have plants that can resist my very limited watering and the constant slug invasion... meaning that I have mostly raspberries, blackberries, currants and herbs. And a lot of garlic ;) someone said that it's easier to raise animals than to grow vegetables or fruits, and I think that's true in my case.

I was waiting for my motivation to make art to return, but that's not going to happen so I just have to force myself to sit and do the work ;) so I can wait until all the beautiful books are ready to be presented to the world...
So... here is a pile of books which I will use to write the things I have to write... on the bottom is my first book by Joel Salatin ever, it arrived yesterday! There is also my sketchbook and a poetry book by Amal El-Mohtar, titled "The Honey Month". We'll see if I can get farming books and poetry books into one bibliography... but now I'll run to the garden to bring my quails a bouquet of herbs, as they're patiently waiting in a cage, until I winter-proof their aviary...

With my little herd of quail came a new pleasure of the day: sitting with them in the aviary and watching them do the quaily things. They seem to be constantly giggling and snooping around. And I can only see the garden from the inside of the aviary, no house or other signs of city life!

I love garlic! But I rarely eat it because my mother hates it :( so I planted it everywhere around my garden, both regular and ornamental varieties, and it looked so beautiful!

I've found this video to be the most "zero waste", and also very well explained:



As for the edible parts, it's similar to a chicken, but smaller, so I think you'd save most nutrients by boiling it. There are varieties bred for meat, which have a bigger breast, but it's still not more than half of a chicken breast.

The filmmakers have revisited the lady who's mentioned earlier in this topic, and they made another video about her suburban garden!

Thanks! Most of it is my "notes to self" anyway :) and I still can't find motivation to make art, but illustrating something like this feels neutral enough that it's actually interesting to me. I'll also do the layout.

I only have three months of experience with quail, and so far I think they're perfect for urban homesteads - quiet and almost invisible in the garden; and great for people who aren't physically strong (like me).

I'm making a book about quail in permaculture, and I'd love your input! I'm writing it in Polish, but I may consider translating to English and making some "print on demand" kind of thing (but I've never done that). It will be a guide about raising them, in a permaculture context, and my idea is to print a small number of copies to make a handmade limited edition, and then see if anyone is interested in publishing it on a larger scale.
One thing somewhat unusual about it, is that I want all illustrations to be my original watercolours/drawings.
I'd love to credit everyone who contributes, and I can also make a list of farms, homesteads, etc, that raise quail.
I'm looking for any tips about feeding, management, aviary or cage design, recipes, or anything you'd like to add!
Attached a picture of one bird as a chick and as an adult - I'd love to name all the colour varieties too, but I think there are too many, and some genetic varieties are unnamed...

Eric Hanson wrote:I am not complaining, not one bit.  But the sum total of all the little tedious chores is what grinds on my nerves.

Same here. Most of the city people I talk to, think that I would be terribly lonely in such place, but I think that social interactions are actually better when people aren't as crowded together, and their responsibilities make more sense...