Friday 25 November 2016

And back to Snowpea

Our super-mum, Snowpea, has hatched her fourth brood! Six little babies, all doing beautifully - until this morning - when there were only five. Snowpea defends them fiercely, and hunts for food all day long, but I can only imagine one either got lost (and froze overnight) or was attacked and killed by another bird. The tiny chicks do get confused as to which quail is mum, if there are too many around.

Anyway, they are gorgeous, and enjoying all the insects that show up when we tackle our overgrown weed patches...
"This is a jackjumper ant, kids - they bite, so eat it quickly."

Snowpea and the three greediest chicks who stay close by...you can just see their wing feathers starting to sprout.

"Ooh mum, I can't eat that - yuk!"

"If you just wait, it'll come out again any minute now..."

"I know there's something good under here."

Muddled Melon!

Remember Melon? She was abandoned by her mother - Snowpea - at an early age, but refused to completely leave her, and ended up co-parenting Snowpea's next hatch of eight (who all survived). This time, Melon was sitting on her own 10 eggs. We had high hopes for her, as Snowpea is our best mother, and we thought Melon might have learned all the tricks for successfully raising a family. Mmm...
It seems that once her first chick hatched, Melon got over-excited. I found 6 eggs rolled out of the nest (unhatched) and three left in the nest (unhatched), and Melon happily finding food for one single, solitary chick...
Sigh.
Now things get complicated.
We have:
One baby from Spock
Three babies from Blork
One baby from Melon
Melon's single chick...an only child
Spock's chick decided that, despite her disinterest, he wasn't ready to leave home, and determinedly followed her around for a week or two, snuggling up beside her at night, and generally keeping her company. He would give the plaintive cheep of a lost chick, and she would never respond, but he seemed to find her anyway.

Melon's chick - with foster-brother (or sister)!
Blork's babies were also lonely, and cheeping - and ignored by Blork. However, as the age difference wasn't so great - maybe a week - they quickly discovered that Melon was a much more attentive mother - and they have joined her and her single chick! We were worried that they might attack their younger foster-sibling...but they don't. In fact, they seem to have encouraged it to mature faster - given that it has to compete for food - it's become very speedy and confident, and sleeps at night huddled up with Melon and the three others - who are too big to get under her wings - although they did try at first...
Now they are pretty much independent, with Melon mostly ignoring them - and it is the foster-family who come running when the little one squeaks for company.
Life in the garden is never simple with these birds!




Blork's baby blues...

Meanwhile, while Spock's one surviving chick struggled on, Blork hatched seven new babies. The weather was good at first, and we thought this lot would do better than all the others who'd had to contend with the wettest, coldest Spring we'd had in years. But it was not to be. The rain came back, and one morning I came home to find five weak and freezing babies, desperately trying to catch up to their mother, who had come over for seeds and mealworms.  The sixth was dead, and the seventh had disappeared. Three fell over, and couldn't get up - one was barely able to move. I hastily gathered up Blork and two wet chicks and put them into our small cage, where she settled down to eat. I went back for the other three - and one was dead. I took the last two up to the house - one was in a very bad way and I doubted he would survive. I gave them to the kids to hold by the heater, and rushed back down to the garden to check on the others with their mum. Alas, in the time I'd taken to get to the house, one was dead. It was so quick - but it seems that once they get cold, they weaken incredibly fast. The one was huddled underneath their mother. Incredibly, both the chicks we warmed in the house recovered, and were put into the small cage. They all made it through the night, and are now about 3 weeks old.
Blork's brood - before the bad weather hit...

Happy mum providing a bit of cover


Spock's sad saga

Sometimes raising quail can be slightly traumatic - especially if you are soft-hearted and prone to worrying about hatchlings as if they were your own kids...
Spock finally hatched three little babies - one of which was all white (pale yellow). This one, naturally, was the kids' favourite - and the first to die. It lasted about four days, looking healthy - until one day it just wasn't healthy any more, and faded away. We don't know why. Natural selection - but the grief was strong as we all really wanted some variation in colour - all bar two of our birds are the standard Coturnix light brown patterning (Pharoah markings, I think) and well nigh impossible to tell apart! The remaining two seemed strong and happy - one was much bigger than the other, and we feared for the smaller one. Spock was a slightly indifferent mother, and refused to share her mealworms - whenever we gave her some she would scoff them immediately and never offer them to her chicks. Every other mother quail has given most of the mealworms to her babies...
Snowpea's four chicks - now about 8 weeks old  - formed a gang of four and terrorised Spock's two little ones. On one occasion I rescued the smaller hatchling which had been grabbed by the neck by one of the older gang, who was shaking it violently, while the others pecked at it. Horrid. None of the adult birds took much notice of the two babies - only the immature birds seemed to hunt them. The little one really struggled - whenever it got cold it collapsed on the ground, unable to move. Spock never seemed particularly concerned, and we kept finding it, cold and feebly chirping. We'd put it in a small cage with Spock overnight, and it would recover. This happened twice. Eventually Spock seemed to abandon any pretense at mothering. 
Spock - a beautiful girl, but lacking the mothering instinct!
 A few days later the smaller chick died, very suddenly - after having survived numerous near-death experiences. More grief.
Sadly, we have no photos of either of the two little ones...but there is one chick remaining - of which more will be told later!

The kids had a funeral for the little chick...