The journey of Homesteading | Meet my Quails!

in Homesteadinglast year

Five years ago I was a full blown city boy and I was fine with it. It's like one of those mindsets you have because you just don't know better, you're used to your bubble and ignorance is bliss becomes true as hell.

Then I went traveling for three years, I learned about crypto and listened to a lot of points of view on many matters, both on Hive and in real life from people from all over the world.

I began to realize that the world I was comfortably living in is not real and that there is so much going on in the backstage that I was just not happy anymore with my life in too many aspects.

I stopped traveling thanks to the plandemic and I settled down.

One could say I have a libertarian mindset now, some libertarians might say I am not a real libertarian - but that's just a normal behavior from this subculture.

All I can say now is that I am anti-system, pro small as fuck government, and I have trust issues with every entity that has more than 20 people in their payroll.

One of the first steps a libertarian can take in order to live according to the way he thinks, is to begin homesteading and work towards the path of self sufficiency and every step he takes must lead to getting off-grid.

It will never be enough, and every time you think you are slowly getting away from the system you will realize there is no way to be 100% off grid and self sustainable, but we can definitely take away some of the power the system has over you by doing small stuff.

Homesteading as a way to fight the system

Whether you decide to grow your own vegetables, have your own small farm, trade goods instead of purchasing them etc, if you are going down the homestead path you know you will have to work more on a daily basis but, in the end, you will have more control over what goes in yours and your family's body, what chemicals you are exposed to and much more.

I now have my own flock of Quails

At first I wanted chickens to be able to have a healthy breakfast every day but after doing some research - and knowing myself and my own flaws - I decided to start small and see where I went from there.

Compared to Quails, Hens and chickens are much more demanding, they require a lot more space, they are way more noisy and they are obviously harder to maintain - and much more expensive.

So I decided to get eight infant Quails that were not giving any eggs at the time.

Quails require a lot less space than hens but they produce eggs on a daily basis whereas hens produce 1 egg every two days - or at least that's what the hens in this part of Mexico produce. They eat a lot less food and they don't require a lot of attention so, for a rookie homesteader like me they sounded like the perfect breed for me to start my homesteading journey.

A couple of weeks ago they began laying eggs. If you are a homesteader then you already know how amazing it feels to see those eggs next to them every morning. If you are not familiar with this feeling, then you will not understand how different it feels to have a fresh, healthy and chemical free breakfast from your garden.

I eat for breakfast a pair of eggs with veggies every single day and even though I buy organic eggs and vegetables, you never truly know what you are putting in your body until you are in full control of every step of the process. Now that I have these Quails under my care, I have to eat many more every day because a quail's egg is around 1/4 of a chicken's egg size.

A couple of days ago I noticed the production of eggs I was getting on a daily basis dropped, so I did some research and it turns out Quails are birds that get stressed very easily and with little to no stimulus they can drop their egg production if they get too cold, or feel threatened by other animals outside their cage, or maybe even by handling their cage too much - even though I am the only person that gets close to them and they already know me, if I handle their cage to often I will stress them.

So I have decided to make some changes to their layout, we will see how it works for me after this.

I will make a separate post about their cage changes and I will post some updates on their egg production, I guess this post was mostly to introduce myself to the Homesteaders Community and perhaps get some feedback from more experienced Hive members.

My next step is to get into vegetable growing, specifically onions, tomatoes, and zucchini which are the three veggies I mix my eggs with every morning for breakfast.

Slow but steady I guess.

If you have any tips, links or recommendations for both Quails and veggies please do share them with me, I am very excited to be on this path and I am more than willing to dedicate some time every single day to make this experience and learning as best as I can.

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If I could give you any advice on quais, they would be to give them more room and put them on the ground where they can scratch and dig a little and take dust baths. @minismallholding is my go to person when it comes to these critters. Its not just people who enjoy a few freedoms.

Welcome to the club!

It's been 5 years+ since I own quail.

I recommend you give them at least a sandbath to play in.
They look a bit cramped in there :/

Oh man I know! And can you believe that the person who sold them to me kept more than 20 Quails in a cage that size? With no other space during the day for them to move that's just cruelty, but it is how shit works in the 3rd world, it sucks. I am planning on building them a small fence for them to spend the day and then sleep in the cage :D

The sandbath is a good idea, I will look more into this, perhaps inside the fence which will be in grass so there won't be any issues if they mess up the sand pool lol.

I didn't know you've had quails for so long! Any more advices?

In the EU it is perfectly legal to have 14 quails per m².
So I assume most commercial breeders do exactly that.
It is not a 3rd world thing.

The sandbath will get messy. They poop in it then bath in it.
It means, I have to swap the sand (dirt/ashes - whatever you got) quite often and sometimes I just take it out of their cage for a while (I use an old baking tray).

Whenever I give them fresh sand, they go nuts and cover themselves with dust and play in it. It helps them against some parasites. It is also their natural instinct.

Quails were my start into having animals.
The fact that they need high protein feed makes the whole enterprise non sustainable in my opinion. If shit goes down, where would I buy soy based feed?

I am waiting for them to die of old age, which should start happening next year. I will not get any more then.

My living situation doesn't really allow me to have chickens, but they are much better in terms of feed varietes (kitchen scraps and things) and lay much bigger eggs.

So my general advice would be to upgrade to 5 chickens next :)

I honestly see a massive push back to getting back to the cores of homesteading. It's something I want to start doing myself full scale within the next 1-3 years starting from a brand new plot of land and documenting it along the way. Homesteading for the win!

Definitely and I have no idea if I just see it more because I am now in contact with anti-system people or it has always been like this, but it seems like people are definitely waking up and starting to take actions against the status quo man. That sounds amazing, you really should get to it, it's fun as hell and I can't express how satisfying it is too go out to your yard, gather food and then cook it that very same day, it has a ping that no other cooking style comes close to it.

Homesteading for the win!

así que un chico de ciudad hoy se dedica a las actividades de granja gracias a hive guau esto es genial me alegra que te hayamos influenciado aunque sea un poco.

Es increible como Hive nos abre los ojos a la gente normal y nos da la oportunidad de aprender cosas nuevas!

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I guess ignorance really is bliss XD I was having a massive stress about something a few weeks ago and a friend of mine (who has very little knowledge of what I was stressing over) kind of stared in horrified fascination at me while I explained why the thing was stressing me out and then delivered that line to me (prior to me having the mini meltdown she was just watching the thing that I was stressing over olike oh yeh that's cool XD).

Yay for eggs! I kind of wanted to get some quails because there's a couple of dishes and pretty much all salads where boiled quail eggs are the perfect size.

J vetoed it because we'd have to do another enclosure and quail eggs are adorably teeny XD

Do the quails have a run? That cage seems very small for the number you have :S

We have a small flock of chickens (currently five, J wants to get more) and get eggs every day (I think one of them is laying every day and the rest is every couple of days but they are all doing it on different days).

Good luck with finding out what's affecting your egg production and with the veges when you start them :D

Definitely, ignorance is bliss as long as things don't affect you directly, which is why most people don't care about what narrative is being pushed and the agendas behind apparently harmless government moves...

Ahahaha yeah, quail eggs are extremely tiny, I think 3-4 make up one chicken egg so yeah, but the upside is that they lay eggs almost daily so there's that, tell J to reconsider!

I wasn't aware chickens lay every day, after some research I was under the understanding they lay 0.5 eggs per day which made me think twice about it cause we consume 4 eggs per day so 8 chickens sound like a lot for a rookie homesteader like me haha, maybe after I get enough experience with the quails I'll take that next step :)

I'm planning to build them a fence so they can run around during the day, but you should see how the breeders keep quails, damn it is sad and one of the things that make me hate the 3rd world practices... around 20 quails per cage (size like mine) and they don't let them out ever :(

hich is why most people don't care about what narrative is being pushed and the agendas behind apparently harmless government moves

Aaargh right?!

I'm not frustrated by this in the slightest XD

It's not just third world practises, "first world" places have some appalling conditions too >_< (I consider factory farms appalling no matter how "clean" and "within regulations" they are)

I was asking J for chicken breeds for you to look at and he pointed out that we might not have the same availability for chicken breeds x_x but basically if you wanted daily egg production look into the factory farming breeds, they will lay daily but are generally a bit more fragile and shorter lived. If you want low maintenance, look into "heritage breeds", some might lay daily and some will lay every couple of days, but they're generally tougher (both longer lived, longer egg production, long as they have a run or can free range they can scratch around for bugs and stuff and you should just be able to feed them kitchen scraps and only buy chicken food if you know you're going to be short on kitchen scraps or just want to boost the nutrition).

Least you won't need a huge run for quails as they're so tiny XD I probably don't need to remind you to make it completely enclosed but I'm going to say it anyway so I feel better :D

Wow , I love this, identifying what we can do and not minding to start small was a bigup for me, I heard quails egg are more nutritious than chicken eggs, how true is that

Yes they are way more nutritious and they are way more delicious! If you have the chance, you don't need a lot of space for them, you should try it out!

Alright I will work towards that. Thanks bro

I started out with quails. Bobwhites, in fact, and it took ages for them to start laying and they didn't lay much either. The guy we bought them from had sold out of the coturnix so he told us these were good layers too. I think he was just trying to make a sale.

Chickens came next, then I added coturnix quails back in because we could breed without rooster issues in suburbia. Mine go in waves with their egg laying. I'll get loads, then it will drop off for a bit, then come back. I tried to figure it out for ages, but stress doesn't seem to play into it. If they run out of water on a hot day, that does seem to have an affect, though. They don't lay in winter unless they have light for longer, so artificial light.

I really hope they up their laying game once I make some changes to lower their stress level, but if not I am still very happy with my new flock, I'm learning a lot!

These are still young so we'll see haha, that chicken and coturnix experience sounds fun, I've seen you around a lot I've no idea why I wasn't following you, hopefully there are some homestead stories!

Thanks for the tips, I'll take them into account and hopefully I can make an update about the fence and the laying :)

I don't get chance to homestead or write much these days. Back to working the daily grind. I'm hoping to set some time aside for the garden this weekend. 🤞

Great move getting off of the grid.

(All I can say now is that I am anti-system, pro small as fuck government)
As the people at the head of the table continue to think they know what is best for all of us no matter where we live, checking out and doing things the way we wish is totally refreshing and breathes new life back into one's very being.
To me, homesteading doesn't mean that you need to live a life without modern conveniences!
I ran the rat race for many years, having four children dictated that. Over the past, for t 6 years I have established a new way of living and looking at things. Life is simpler now and I feel a real sense of accomplishment.
45 years ago we bought our land, knowing that one day we would be able to live a life void of all the nonsense that continued to keep us under the thumb of others.
Homesteading is a learning experience, whatever degree you decide to take it to.
For us, growing our own food to avoid all of the shit that is used to produce the amount of food needed to feed the masses was our first goal. Providing heat by the way of natural resources was a must. Having a water supply by the way of a well and pond has paid huge dividends as clean water is such a huge issue and getting bigger all of the time. Hunting and fishing took on a new meaning. We live in a very rural area and have developed some great friendships which brought on a whole new meaning to the word community. Alternative energy sources have given us an opportunity to leave less of a footprint on the land.
Life is much simpler now and this new way of living has shown us just how important it is to be one with nature.

@anomadsoul, with your journey just beginning, if there is ever anything I may be able to give you a little insight about please don't hesitate to ask.

Good luck with your new life. Homesteading is a trip that will enrich your life.