THE GAME BREEDER 



105 



Bobwhites — Tame as Chickens. 



QUAIL BREEDING IN VIRGINIA 



By W. B. Coleman. 



I will try and give you some idea how 

 I care for my bobwhites. My breeding 

 pens are 15 feet long by 5 feet wide. In 

 these pens three hen birds may be kept 

 with one cock during breeding season 

 and eggs be set under bantam hens. They 

 may also be penned in pairs. They will 

 make nice nests, lay, set and hatch won- 

 derfully well. Of course young birds 

 must be taken from the mother quail 

 before they are well dry and put with 

 bantam hens. For the first few days 

 they will run off from hen, of course, 

 and they have to be confined in a close 

 place for several days, after which time 

 they may be permitted to run at large. 



It is surprising to see how soon they 

 learn the call of the bantams and follow 

 her as well as chickens. I raised nine 

 bobwhites in our orchard with bantams 

 and they were never confined at all ex- 

 cept I drove the hen and birds in a box 

 with a fly screen door every night just 

 as you do chickens. All of my young 

 bobwhites were reared in this manner. 



My old birds are as wild as they ever 



were and have to be penned always. 

 They never become tame except when 

 taken from the wild birds as soon as 

 they are hatched. The birds I reared by 

 bantams are as tame as chickens and fed 

 from the first on yolk of hard boiled egg 

 and curd. Feed wheat bran later and 

 when old enough to eat it let them have 

 crushed grain such as wheat, oats and 

 corn fed dry. When penned green food 

 must be furnished, also ground oyster 

 shells, crushed fine. They should have 

 a good dust wallow of dry ashes and all 

 such things must be looked after. For 

 pens I use some poultry wire, j/2 inch 

 mesh, but find fly screen wire best ; this 

 keeps out rats, etc. 



It is wonderful to see how well the 

 wild quail will do in the closest confine- 

 ment. I have one pair of birds in a pen 

 made of some wire I had left over which 

 is only three by nine feet and the hen 

 bird made a beautiful nest and laid thir- 

 teen eggs. I had one pair of birds in 

 a little larger pen than this and the hen 

 laid fourteen eggs anji hatched thirteen 

 bobwhites. Before they got out of the 

 the nest I took them from the hen quail 



