My fiance, stepson, and I moved into our house in July 2008. Our home is 5.5 miles from downtown Sacramento and smack dab in the middle of suburbia. Despite our location, our obvious lack of land, and our busy schedules (we both work full-time), we’re attempting to increase our self-sufficiency as best we can.
So if you, too, live in a suburban area and are interested in minimizing your impact on the earth (and your wallet), join us as we document both our successes and our failures!
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December 5, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Schroeder
I love your quail hutch and plan to make one. I’m new to quail and don’t understand where they would lay their eggs in the hutch, and how you would collect them. Do I need built-ins specifically for this purpose?
January 18, 2010 at 8:57 pm
suburbansustainability
Hey Schroeder! Our quails tend to lay their eggs in the closed area of the quail hutch. However, sometimes they’ll also just drop them on the wire. Unlike with chickens, there does not need to be a specific area for the quails to lay their eggs. Nor do the quails ever get broody, so they won’t sit on their eggs either. Let me know if you have any more questions, and feel free to email me! I’m happy to help!
December 9, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Katie
Hi There,
I love your website!
I too to grow summer veggies and have a few fruit trees/berry bushes. It’s amazing how productive a small garden can be!
I found your website while doing a search on how to build quail cages. Thanks for the great pictures and design plan. Construction of my quail pens is almost under way.
I have a batch of Coturnix that will (hopefully-first attempt at incubation) hatch about the 17th of this month. If my hatch is successfull and I end up with too many quail would you be interested in taking some? I just read you live in West Sac. Very cool. I live in Elk Grove.
Also, can you tell me if your neighbors have been receptive to your quail? Are the hens noisy? I wasn’t going to tell anyone one about my quail for fear of being turned into the county. I too live in a subdivision and I am not zoned for poultry/gamebirds so I hope those hens don’t make too much noise. I was going to rehome the roosters as I understand they are louder.
Thanks for the great blog!
Katie
January 18, 2010 at 9:02 pm
suburbansustainability
Hey Katie, sorry so long for the reply – I had a family emergency. I’d love to do some quail trading with you sometime! We can keep our flocks less genetically related that way. My neighbors don’t mind the quail. It helps if you bring them some eggs once in a while. I don’t think we’re zoned for poultry either, but these things are so small, I think of them more as pets.
The hens are very, very quiet. They’ll make a cricket-like chirping sound when they’re scared, but other than that they only make little cooing sounds. I keep three roosters. They are definitely louder. With the proper ratio of hens to roosters, they crow maybe three times a day. And some roosters are louder than others. I try to keep the most quiet ones.
Let me know if you have any more questions, and feel free to drop me a line! I’m always excited to meet others in the area who are keeping quails/chickens and vegetable gardening!
January 19, 2010 at 4:59 pm
Katie
Hi there,
I hope your family is doing well.
I would love to trade some birds with you in the future. I actually have a few you can have if you want. I am keeping most of the hens, and only 2 of the 20 roo’s. The rest will be dinner (not sure how I feel about this). I purchased a mix of eggs from a wonderful breeder in Oregon. She said that the eggs where taken from various breeder cages, so I should be safe breeding the various breeds from this hatch. I have Italian, Tibetan, English or Texas A&M (they are white with a few brown dots on their heads and backs) and standard brown. These birds are 4.5 weeks old and they are ready to go, let me know if you want a few.
Thanks for the info! I am sooo excited to get some eggs!
Also, we are looking for homes for our soon to be born baby bunnies. Can you pass the word on to anyone you think might be interested. We thought we had 2 boys, and oops we had a girl and boy. They should be born within the next 2 weeks. By Easter they should be between 8 and 9 weeks old. The mom is a purebred Dutch, and dad is a Holland Lop. Both breeds mature to about 4-5 pounds, so they are not a large breed.
Cheers
Katie
April 8, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Dan
Hi…I talked with Schroeder over on BYC, and love yours and his Quail hutches. I am hatching some Chukar Partridge and Cortunix Quail within the next 20 days, and would LOVE to build your hutches. I can only find the link to Quail hutch part III on your site…can you point me to the beginning of your quail hutch build??
Thank you so much
Dan
April 20, 2010 at 4:55 am
suburbansustainability
Hey Dan, if you click on the ‘quail hutch’ tag on the side bar of my blog, it’ll pop up with Quail hutch parts I, II, and III. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions! Here’s the link to the tag: http://suburbansustainability.wordpress.com/tag/quail-hutch/
May 18, 2010 at 1:08 pm
quickgardens
You have put together a great blog. Looking forward to catching up on the articles.