My water thing good for 80 birds or so. When I see people rehoming quail, it's usually because they don't have a proper water setup leading to the birds being a LOT more work than they need to be.
Now floor is covered with food, 15 males cleaning up food. Bless them. Browns aren't laying, they're tossing all their food on the floor. When mist goes on in summer, the BSF maggots in back trench will churn the food and poop into garden goodness, then be food for birds.
Until then, we've got BSF maggots in the best maggot bin we made last summer. Most people have NO idea how amazing that is. It means they've been living and propagating IN THAT BIN the whole winter.
Here they were yesterday. People tend to prefer pictures of dirty jars because you can't see the maggots real well. I'm desensitized. I see BSF larvae I see $$$.
However, this is just stuff you do when you have 100 birds. When you have up to 8 hens, you can get by with mealworm treats. I grow those too. In my house. In my bedroom. People don't like those pictures either.
In previous picture, of mealworms, there's $20 worth of mealworms in THAT picture. Imagine trying to feed your birds those treats daily or even weekly without growing them yourself. My son comes in and grabs a few here and there for his dragons and turtle occasionally.
Here's a standard "Tuxedo". So up to 8 standards with 1 roo, good watering system, they eat about 1.5oz a day, unless they toss food around, mealworm treats, they're honestly easy birds. One trip a day to feed, maintain water, and collect eggs is all that's necessary.
@vileTexan #quailprocess #ItsAProcess Remember last year when I was going insane over the larvae bin? LOL. ONE of 4 bins was made well enough. It was piled high in there with rat bodies, my husband has a lil trident to kill rats. #BasicEggProcess