THE GAME BREEDER 



105 



AN EXPERIMENT IN GAME BREEDING. 



By D. W. Huntington. 



Quail Breeding. 



Our quail breeding experiments were 

 confined to two species — the bob-whites 

 and the Gambel's partridge or quail. 

 Since much time was consumed in se- 

 lecting and renting the ground for our 

 experiments we were necessarily late in 

 ordering quail, and when our bob-whites 

 arrived they were all cock birds but one. 

 It is fair to the dealer to say that he in- 

 formed us this was the best he could do 

 and we accepted the birds gladly, since 

 a good number of extra cock birds is 

 always useful the first season on an ex- 

 perimental farm where the experiments 

 are intended to show some shooting. 

 The hen quail, a Massachusetts bird, was 

 paired with a cock, and the birds were 

 placed in a small pen containing grass 

 and clover and some brush loosely piled 

 at one end of the pen. The hen nested 

 and laid fourteen eggs when unfortun- 

 ately she died from a cause unknown. 

 The cock bird at once occupied the nest 

 and successfully hatched all the eggs but 

 one and reared the brood to maturity. He 

 was much admired ' by visitors who 

 caught a glimpse of him sitting closely 

 in the grass under the brush. 



Breeding Gambel's Quail. 



Our most important experiment was 

 made with Gambel's quail. Three dozen 

 birds were purchased in New Mexico 

 and these were shipped safely and with- 

 out any loss. Since there was some de- 

 lay in issuing the license to breed game 

 and it had not arrived when the birds 

 were shipped they were ordered sent to 

 a member of the Society on Long Island 

 who had a license and a day or two later 

 the birds were re-shipped to the farm. 



A few of the birds were given to the 

 owner of the game farm who kept them 

 temporarily and the rest arrived without 

 any loss and in splendid condition, indi- 

 cating that the birds can be shipped safely 

 long distances. 



Considering the late start, the number 



of eggs gathered from a dozen hen quail 

 was very satisfactory. One pair mated 

 arbitrarily produced more eggs than the 

 average hen did in a larger pen where 

 the rest of the birds were confined to- 

 gether. It is evident, however, that 

 Gambel's quail will lay numerous eggs, 

 just as pheasants do, when a number of 

 birds are confined in one pen. The pens 

 contained grass and brush, the last named 

 placed in the center and at one end of 

 the pen for concealment — the end oppo- 

 site the door used by the keeper when 

 he entered to gather the eggs. One hun- 

 dred and thirty eggs were gathered. A 

 few were used to make the color illus- 

 tration for the October number of The 

 Game Breeder. One hundred and twenty 

 eggs were placed in an incubator with 

 30 bob-white quail eggs which came from 

 Massachusetts, the last named, it is fair 

 to say, were held for some time after 

 their journey in the mail because it was 

 impossible to get hens promptly to incu- 

 bate them. Ninety out of one hundred 

 and twenty Gambel's quail eggs and two 

 of the bob-white eggs out of thirty 

 hatched in the incubator. 



The young quail were transferred to 

 bantams and placed in coops. These 

 coops were placed in the corners of three 

 adjoining pens, each 30 feet long by 10 

 feet wide. The pens were erected on one 

 side of the kitchen garden which was 

 full of weeds which made excellent cover 

 for the young quail and provided both 

 insect and green weed-seed foods. 



One hen killed twelve young quail the 

 first night, but with this exception the 

 losses were small, very small, I would 

 say, for the first year in experimental 

 work "with a species never before hand- 

 reared, so far as I am aware. 



The sides and ends of the pens were 

 forty-six inches high. Two boards each 

 eleven inches wide were used for the 

 base and the upper parts of the sides 

 and ends of the pens were made of 

 24-inch wire, half-inch mesh. The pens 

 were not enclosed at the top, but there 



