Welcome to the Holistic Hen - Sharing Experiences Raising Organic Chickens, Quail & Pigeons

Organically raised chickens, quail, fantail pigeons and the occasional guest poultry all living in 1000m2 of organic forest garden. My articles attempt to look at the poultry's view of life in the backyard and to observe and share how they thrive and survive in the environment we created for them. On the occasions when I need to intervene, I do so with a holistic approach to the bird as an individual and also to infer from the situation what this tells me about the general health, happiness and dynamics of the flock. I also look at stress management and show how to use nutrition and phytotherapy for both prevention and cure of various conditions. 

LATEST ARTICLE

Raising Mealworms Organically for Optimum Poultry Protein - Part One - Sourcing/Detoxing & Creating an Environment

Can't wait for  a mealworm!

I've always been concerned about the level of protein in the diet of my quail. This is not only from the point of view of egg laying but also and more importantly because from my observation that my quail undergo a complete personality change when they are short of amino acids such as L-methionine. They become fractious and argumentative with each other and shout angrily at me when they see me in the garden. ...read more 

Part Two - Optimising the Environment, Population Growth & Grain Mite

As with all my work both writing and films, my intention is to share that observation is key in the understanding of how we can best raise our poultry. This also holds good for how we raise their food. Understanding how invertebrates live, reproduce and interact with their habitat, helps not only in time-saving and avoiding unnecessary labour but also in getting positive results. The first conclusion we came to was that the plastic box was not an optimum environment!......read more 

These articles are on-going, they occur either as they happen to us or because someone has asked me for help with their birds and thus to share what I have learned from the experience. Below you will find my my latest YouTube video:

Organic Poultry Food For Free - Creating Leaf Mould

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Choosing the Right Mother Hen. Hatching and Raising Quail Organically - Part Five

Raising quail with a hen is a three way process, there has to be understanding and adaptability from both mother and chick(s) but there also has to be the same between you and the hen.

There can be problems with quail chicks, when you'll need to intervene and quickly - trust is all.

In this post I will take you through the first two of five case studies of the mother hens I chose to raise our quail. No experience was the same and I learned something new and valuable from all of them. You will see I used two specific breeds and two cross-bred hens but it was their physical and mental characteristics which informed that choice. Therefore, although I would strongly recommend the breeds I used, any hen with the same attributes should do just as fine a job. I made some simple, what I thought of as common sense rules, before I made my final choices but I also modified these with time and experience. In one case I even broke what I believed to be an unequivocal decision, which was never to use a hen, who had no experience of hatching and raising chicks.

The neophyte Cappuccino, I took a chance on her methodical foraging and focussed sitting abilities

My Simple Criteria - choice of mother

As stated above some of these were changed and/or modified with experience but as a general rule of thumb, I found they made a useful starting point.

The hen should be:

- light-weight to accommodate the size and fragility of the eggs and chicks

- fine feathered to avoid hampering the chick, who will burrow into the down

- small-footed to avoid dangers when digging

- tame and trusting - most important because of unavoidable problems

- quick to perceive changes in chicks - cold kills quail

- a good and methodical forager - high metabolic rate = quail chicks eat a lot

- accommodating and unflustered - these are not chicks as she knows them

- experienced as a sitter and raiser of chicks

- aware of and quick to spot danger - quail chicks are so focussed on eating.

En Garde - Polly picks a vantage point on the top of the opened quail run. Out here in the meadow, where we were giving the quail freerange to forage with their mother, there were buzzards in the distance. Polly was always checking the skies, as well as keeping an eye on the chicks. We were only giving her a couple of quail at a time and Andy was presiding over those left in the run but Polly kept coming back to check he was on the ball!

Case One - Chicklette the Ardenner

Ardenners are a rare breed bantam and standard size hen and as the name suggests, from Southern Belgium. The standard size are very difficult to find, the breed like many, having been decimated by two World Wars. They are thought, in their ancient five toed version, to be the stock from which the Dorking was bred and in fact people often mistake Polly, for such in my films. The Ardenner holds a special place in my heart because this was the breed of the first ever chickens I raised here. I was given a pair of young chicks, sisters, in part payment for 'sitting' the neighbouring smallholding/homestead. Chicklette (on the right) had always been the more authoritarian of the pair, even going so far as to start crowing at one point but she had raised two impeccable clutches of foraging chicks as had her sister. However, she was lighter in weight and also had a slight edge on Poulie, in that she seemed to be able to find more protein per square centimetre than any hen I have ever seen before or since. The only problem with her was her slightly domineering personality and crazy nature when broody, in fact together she and Poulie were at opposite ends, with the latter being calm and easy going. In The Complete Encyclopaedia of Chickens the authors, Esther Verhoef and Aad Rijs, state that Ardenners take on the personality and characteristics of the keeper, which is interesting because I am a Gemini.

Pest control - Chicklette clearing aphids from the beans and as they grew taller she would hand them down to the quail!

..and what I learned

The eggs were a big problem for Chicklette, she really didn't like them and made the noise I associate with both dislike and distrust. Later to avoid this problem with Polly, her daughter, I actually put one of her own eggs in with the clutch as well, just to give her a point of reference.

The chicks however, were an even bigger problem at hatch. I had forgotten that one of Chicklette's idiosyncrasies was that she had a mortal fear of mice, unlike Lucky, my second mother who used to hunt them! The day before the eggs were due to hatch, we were invited to dinner but as we were just about to leave I saw a chick come whizzing through the air, Chicklette was systematically ejecting small brown quail chicks from the nest. On further investigation I saw she had already hatched a couple of golden quail who were well-snuggled under her and being an inquisitive bird she had already had a good look at them. The brown quail though with their fine pointed heads and dark beady eyes, peeking through her feathers, did look uncannily like mice and I am sure this was at the root of the problem. So I spent an hour sitting on the kitchen floor in my party frock, fielding little brown chicks as they were expelled from the nest. Each chick was then reintroduced to her, so as she could see the shape of the whole tiny creature and accept it as a bird. Luckily we were invited to friends who were farmers and know the vagaries of this life, so we ended the evening leaving a content Chicklette for an excellent dinner.

On the strength of what I learned from Chicklette, I always present the quail egg to the hen. Trusting me helps to diminish any potential fears or worries the hen might have.

Case Two - Lovely Lucky

Lucky the Sebright cross was an excellent mother, who had raised an enormous brood for her size (see photo in the 'About' section top right) and kept them constantly and well fed. She was super qualified in both weight and feathering and unlike Sebrights in general, a great sitter and a doting and long-haul mother. Sebrights are reputed only to keep their chicks for four weeks before they leave them, I have actually had this happen. She was tamer than Chicklette and much calmer and I expected to have little or no trouble with her adapting to quail chicks who looked, smelled and spoke differently to her previous brood. In the event, sadly hardly any of her eggs hatched. They came by post from a big commercial hatchery and  those that did hatch were all golden and not strong. The golden quail here come from a very small gene pool and are often much weaker than the rest. Lucky ended up with one chick Pip, whom she adored and the chick so imprinted on her they were almost identical twins.

...and what I learned

that a good mother imprints upon even quail chicks and that as with Chicklette a good forager, like Lucky, makes for a great foraging chick.

and also...
not to count my quail chicks before they hatched and that no hatch is ever the same!

...to be continued

Thanks for dropping by and if you enjoyed this post and found it useful, please feel free to share, comment, ask questions and/or relate your own experience of raising quail with a mother hen.

All the best, Sue
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© 2014 Sue Cross

Understanding Broodiness in Hens & How this helps in raising quail. Hatchng Quail Organically Part 4

Last year I raised another brood of quail chicks with a mother hen and although I made some films of the different stages of development and the joys, trials and tribulations, I have not yet found time to sit down and put the experience onto paper. I'm doing this now in the hope that it will be of use to those amongst you who have contacted me via this blog or my youtube site and others too, who like me would like to raise quail outside the convention of the incubator, wire cage and a cultivated grain diet. I'm going to try and share as much detail as possible but please do write and ask if you need any further information. 

Worth their weight in gold - organic quail eggs, our own.

Starting with the basics

Eggs

The two main factors contributing to the success of your hatch and the relative carefree nature of the experience are the quality of the hatching eggs and the nature of the broody. Let's take the eggs first. These, if possible should be from organic stock, a non-existent option in my case and I guess in that of many others, there being no such hatching eggs, or even quail available. Once you have built up enough bloodlines you will be able to breed from your own stock, a position I would have been in, if we had not suffered a bad predator attack the year before. The next best thing, is to find eggs from birds, who have been allowed some outside recreation, or are barn-bred and who have been raised on a non-medicated and non-GMO feed. If you can get organic quail eggs then you are very lucky and should not experience any of the nutritional deficiencies which will be dealt with in a later chapter.

Chicken

Mad                                                      Bad                           and Dangerous to Know

Bubble throwing herself whole-heartedly into the part. An interpretation unlikely to put her in a strong position for the role of Mummy quail.


The idea of 'a' broody hen is a simplified human interpretation of what is a complex and recurring phase in a bird's life. From all my observations of hens in various stages and states of broodiness, I have come to the conclusion that there is, in fact, no such creature as the above. This is of tantamount importance when choosing the right hen for the job and so in the following paragraphs I'm going to try and break-down exactly what I have observed and I will follow it up with a film showing various examples of broodiness and how this impacts upon and informs my choice. Firstly though, I would like to stress that if you are embarking on raising quail or chicks for the first time you should furnish yourself with a back-up broody in case of problems. That said, in my first ever quail hatch some 12+ years ago I did not  have that option and I did manage to get around the problem but then with quail flexibility is all.

Why do hens go broody?   

Understanding even just part of this is the key to not making mistakes in hatching and brooding quail. There are, according to my own observations and I can have eight to ten broodies at any one time in my flock, many reasons for a hen to go broody. I'm sure I haven't figured out all of them but the following are to me the obvious ones. 

It might seem logical that because of the precocial nature of quail and their high level of activity, a younger mother might be the best suited but a young broody may have ulterior motives...

To a young hen, or one low in the pecking order, being broody gives status, which it may otherwise take her months or even years to attain. The broody hen and even more so, the mother of chicks, is revered by the whole flock. She has priority at the food bowl and in the case of a garden with several flocks, like our own, has a right of passage through all territories. Her protective and often aggressive behaviour seems to instil fear into the heart of all but the most self-possessed of cockerels or perhaps it is the instinct poultry seem to have that these chicks are their future. In all my years keeping poultry, I have only had one cockerel, an Ardenner, who has ever challenged the dominant position of a hen with chickens. Motherhood brings out the monogamy in many cockerels and in particular if they have an inkling that the chicks could be theirs.

Although a young hen will go broody for improved status, that does not mean she will actually want to carry it through to full motherhood. You should be aware that her thinking may also be influenced by another reason for sitting eggs and that is to get away from the attention of cockerels.

In Spring a young cockerel's fancy turns to chickens...

Having a forest garden setting for my hens and with a rather laisser faire attitude to my birds, I can end up in Spring with a few unplanned chicks, some of which will by the law of averages and I believe, the influence of seasonal temperatures, may be male. I have four flocks in the garden and a good spattering of males, these live in harmony with each other and the hens but the arrival of new cockerels at maturity can cause some problems. Even if you do not have a similar establishment, the influence of any type of aggressive behaviour, whether from a male or female in the flock, can have a tendency to promote broodiness as a way of physical and mental escape.

Older males within the flock have a côterie of females or a favourite hen and in general all the hens and cockerels in my garden are paired off. This means that any new intake of cockerels finds itself marginalised as far as l'amour is concerned and spends a lot of time running after mostly younger females. The latter are targeted because, unlike older and more experienced hens, they are often for whatever reasons, unprepared to fight for their honour. This can trigger a rash of broodiness among a younger flock, which can however exacerbate the problems. The cockerels become opportunists, jumping on the sitting hens but a good dominant cockerel soon puts a stop to that!

Broodiness, like dust-bathing or yawning in humans, seems to be something which tends to 'go  through' a flock, so with the younger hens you really need to be sure it isn't just a passing fad.

For the older hens, the two above reasons should also be considered when choosing a broody. However, in addition some of them are serial sitters, after all if you are sitting you are not expected to do much else. Over the years my comportment has taught my hens that I'll bring breakfast and dinner 'in bed', take them indoors to a nice cool room in the heat of Summer and install them in an individual hay-filled cardboard box. Hens aren't stupid and they have good memories. This does not matter if they are intent on seeing the thing through but some hens are actually just keen on sitting. They do not under any circumstances intend to or expect to have the onerous task of bringing up chicks. Only experience of the individual hen sitting full-term and coping with a hatch and the aftermath of many weeks of hard work will tell you this about your hen... and for quail this is going to be extra, extra hard work.

Next time I will look at the types of hen I have chosen to raise quail and the specific characteristics needed, with five individual case studies. Until then I leave you with this film I made about broodiness and which will introduce you to some more of my flock. To access Part 5 of hatching and Raising Quail Organically with a Mother Hen click here

Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to comment, ask questions and/or share your own experience of broodies.

All the best, Sue
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© 2014 Sue Cross

Hatching and Raising Quail Organically for hay fever and eczema - Part 1 - Breaking down the cage door.

This is Polly, a rare-breed, organic Ardenner bantam and one of her brood of newly hatched quail. I first started raising quail when we came to live permanently in France some fourteen years ago now. 

Quail Fever - We cured the hay fever and eczema but not our addiction to raising quail

My husband Andy had suffered from hay fever every year since the Summer of 1976. We knew that coming to live a new life in an abandoned field and orchard, would be untenable unless we found a cure. We had already began extensive plantings of so many shrubs, trees and flowers, for our eventual food forest. 

Furthermore, in 1977 Andy had also worked on a machine, using an oil which had caused him to have a contact dermatitis which led on to eczema.

I had read that as early as the twelfth century in Japan quail eggs were being used in  the treatment of various respiratory diseases and allergies. They were also used in traditional medicine in China. We couldn't find any organic eggs so I decided I would have to raise the quail myself.

My first hens, a pair of Ardenner bantams called Chicklette and Pouldini, had been given to us in part payment for looking after a neighbouring smallholding whilst the owners went on holiday. Our Ardenners seemed ideal for the job, they were excellent mothers, foragers, they trusted us and they were very quick in everything they did, a great advantage with  precocious quail.

Why we all need to give quail a better deal in life 

Whilst waiting to get my eggs I bought five quail from a livestock market in a nearby town. It was not initially a happy experience, the quail were totally neurotic when I bought them and equally so in the outside run we had made them. Luckily I had heeded the warnings and made a run with a soft voile top, as at the slightest noise they launched themselves up into the air. Over time however, they became accustomed to their environment, calmed down and began to lay. The one thing we used to love to do was to sit and watch them come out of their little house every morning with a hop-skip-jump and a beat of the wings, full of the joie de vivre. On visiting several places where they raised quail, I soon realised the key to their whole behaviour patterns. Everywhere we went quail were raised inside, on wire, mostly in artificial light and caged with hardly room to move. They were in effect laying machines, fed a high protein grain-based and sometimes medicated feed and with no greenery and certainly with no ghost of an attempt at their natural insectivore diet.

This is Golden Grandma out taking the sun in the little enclosed garden in front of the Bake House. She is four years old, having spent three and a half years with us as part of the flock. I'm happy to say she enjoyed life though she was never quite as tame as any of our home-raised birds. She was the last quail I ever bought,  my own quail having succumbed to a rat attack that same year. I lost the whole flock including our much-loved Flopsy a five year-old 'English white' quail, who would follow me around the garden as long as I had a fork in my hand. GG, when we bought her, was 'living' caged in a garage, most of the other birds with her looked terrible and all showed signs of injury. They had obviously been fighting, I should have just turned away and left but I couldn't, I bought five females in all and this little golden quail was the only one who survived past the first week. The man I bought her from invited us to view his 'exhibition hens', they at least, were out in the open air. I could not comprehend how he could not see what he was doing was morally wrong. Unfortunately he is not the worst. I know of hunters who train their dogs by tying a quail by the leg to a stick in a field and then letting the dog loose to find it. When I remonstrate, I am always told that the dog knows never to touch the quail. There is a mental block with some humans in understanding that birds are sentient beings. They would do well to heed Gandhi's words; "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way in which its animals are treated".'

My First Hatch of Quail Eggs

The hatching of my first ever quail with Chicklette was rather traumatic. I had obtained eggs from two colours of quail 'Isabelle' or 'Gold', (see Granny above) and 'Range' a dark chocolate brown.  Something I hadn't considered but which soon became apparent and was to affect the hatch, was that my Ardenner Mother had a total aversion to mice. In the main most hens love mice, to eat that is. I was right on hand when the quail started to hatch and we were probably more excited than the hen was.

The problems started when Chicklette decided to take a good look at the babies, probably because they were making unusual (non-chick) noises and possibly because they smell different. Normally because she is at her most vulnerable, a Mother hen clamps down upon her chicks as they hatch, making encouraging noises in a low voice, something which would get no response with quail. It is true that some hens reach under and eat the shells as the chicks emerge and thereby remove the evidence of hatching which might attract predators.  However, Chicklette took one look at these quail chicks and suddenly they were flying though the air and I could see she was only throwing out the chocolate coloured ones, which looked uncannily like mice. I gathered them all up and presented them individually, showing her that they were indeed baby birds, and happily she accepted them all back under her wings.


This is Poulie with a hatch of Crested Polish Chicks, she too was a wonderful caring parent. If you are thinking of going ahead and raising quail always chose a Mother hen who has a good track record with raising chicks. Quail need a mother hen who has an excellent understanding of and is quick to notice changes in behaviour. Some mothers are very good at finding food but a quail 'mother' needs to be equally good at recognising the moment the quail need to go back under her for warmth and rest. She needs to stop foraging and 'sit', not all hens are good at this. Cold baby quail make a lot of strange almost whining noises, which can be very disconcerting, a good mother hen responds to this immediately. She will also be the first to notice any nutrient deficiencies, very common in quail from non-organic hatching eggs. If you see her pushing Baby back up on its feet, then be aware she has noticed it sitting down too long. This is the first sign of a Vitamin B and/or selenium deficiency and is very common in domesticated game birds and hence in their eggs. A good mother hen will be watching for this problem in baby chicks because it is one of the more common signs and in fact part of a natural remedy for coccidiosis, that is to keep the baby bird moving and expel the problem.

Despite the initial trauma at hatching, Chicklette went on to form a strong bond with the quail, which allowed her to free-range them in the garden, doing sterling work amongst the bean rows. She stayed with them as their Mother for quite some time, longer than I had expected, I think the size of them fooled her into thinking they were still small chicks, who needed care.

Having cured the hay fever and eczema what next? The symbiosis continues in the Garden. 

After eating those few eggs from our first quail, all those years ago, Andy never developed hay fever. In fact he never had hay fever ever again, nor interestingly enough eczema. Five years ago the nature of the active enzyme, the trypsin inhibitor which effects the cure was finally identified and pills made of quail eggs may now be purchased at organic stores. We certainly owe our quail a debt of gratitude.

When my quail eggs hatched last March I had the luck to film the quail chicks as they emerged and I went on to document their first few days of life with Polly, daughter of Chicklette. In my next Quail Post I will take you through the joys and pitfalls of those first few days, culminating in the quail's first foray into the Greenhouse and the start of their full-time job in keeping down the greenfly, whitefly, black fly and any other nuisances they can help us with.

 

Thanks for dropping by and do feel free to share experiences or ask for further information in the comment section. If you have enjoyed this piece and found it useful think about sharing it with your family and friends, on social media and also maybe about joining this blog and/or subscribing to my Youtube, Odysee  or BitChute Channel or even supporting us on Patreon or

It all helps to keep me going!

Until next time, all the very best from sunny Normandie! 

Sue

Part Two of my series on Hatching and Raising Quail organically can be found: here

RELATED ARTICLES

Taking you through the first few days.

Polly and the quail at three days old and already something of a handful! I kept them in the nest for the first three days, letting them gain in strength...read more

How your hen can bring out the best in baby quail.

Years of selective breeding have not only bred the broodiness out of domesticated quail but also their ability to identify and seek out their own food. read more

A comprehensive guide into the history & use of quail eggs in medicine Part 1

How we cured Andy's hay fever and eczema with a dip into Ancient Egypt and 60's France...read more

A comprehensive guide into the history & use of quail eggs in medicine  Part 2

Now we eat quail eggs for pleasure..here I look in depth at the clinical trials in the 1960s and the posology used then and by us...read more

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© 2012 Sue Cross