Читать книгу Jack Miner and the Birds, and Some Things I Know about Nature онлайн

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Quail eggs all hatch, and hatch very suddenly. One year I looked at a nest at ten o’clock and there was nothing doing, and when I came by at twelve o’clock the old hen scolded, so I took another peep; all hands had apparently opened the door at once, and the cluster of pure white eggs had changed so that they resembled a live bumble-bee’s nest.

Quail have no trouble hatching, like some of our domestic fowl; they just simply open the door and jump out. See the illustration.

Pat once asked a little boy what he came for. The little chap in his bashful way replied, “Oh, nothing.” Again Pat took his pipe from between his teeth, as he said, “Well, you’ll find that in the jug behind the door, where the whiskey was.” So we can say the same about this illustration; it is where the little quail were. Notice the neat, uniform way in which they opened the door from the inside.

When they are about to hatch, shut the door of the box so as to keep the tiny pets in. When they are from twenty to thirty-six hours old, move all hands to a dry coop near the garden, or in the back yard near shrubbery. The coop should be from eighteen to twenty-four inches square inside, built with a shed roof ten to twelve inches high in the rear and eighteen to twenty inches high in the front, with a board floor so that the old hen cannot scratch and be on damp ground. Now take three boards about one foot wide and two feet long, tack them in front of the old hen’s coop for a playground for the quail. Leave the hen in the coop and she will put her head out and talk to her family, who cannot get over two feet away from her. Feed them a little custard (one egg to half a cup of milk; no sugar). Feed tiny bits five times a day, always tapping the tin with the spoon as you go near them. In three or four days they will accept the hen as their stepmother, and you as their step-parent. Now draw the two nails (which are only partly driven in) and pull the three boards quietly away, leaving the hen in the permanent coop, but giving the quail their liberty. See illustrations.