I USED TO HAVE A FEED ROOM...

Once upon a time, long ago in a far away land, I had a feed room. It was a beautiful feedroom, with saddle stands full of saddles, bridles and halters and leggings hanging on the wall. It had buckets of feed and the showboxes Daddy built for me to use at the Fair.

Yes, I used to have a feed room. And I loved it.

Okay, you can see where this is going - the same way the garage went ... to the birds!

Today we moved around some week old birds. Last weekend we put some coturnix and bobwhites - then week-olds - into a temporary pen in the feed room. They'd outgrown the brood boxes, but weren't yet ready to be without heat. We just mixed them together, as they were the same age, and it worked really well.

So today, because we are running out of room again, we sectioned off another part of the feed room. We divided the bobwhites (above) and the coturnix (below.)

We put some more coturnix in with the ones from last week. All are very happy and doing their own thing. The bobwhites stay in a tight circle, facing out, ready to flee at a moment's notice.

And the coturnix just enjoy life, all spread out, eating and flapping and digging in the shavings.

It's unbelievable how differently these two varities of quail behave. The coturnix, bred as a meat bird, just lay around and get fat. The bobwhites, still very wild, have one goal - stay alive!

We got a good start on the new shed/flight pen, so maybe it will be ready by the time these outgrow the feed room.