Sweet Rain Quail

04/11/2026

To any and all my followers on the mainland USA: our friend chuck of Conecuh Creek Quail is doing a giveaway in honor of Veteran's Day. The giveaway if for the amazing Jumbo ginger line that descends from Southern Biophilliac Farm & Garden. Get your entry in for a chance to win!

🇺🇸 To celebrate Veterans Day, we’re giving one lucky winner:

🐣 36 COUNT JUMBO GINGER COLLECTION HATCHING EGGS! 🐣🇺🇸🇺🇸

That’s right! One lucky quail enthusiast will receive 36 of our Jumbo Ginger Collection hatching eggs!

HERE’S HOW TO ENTER:

1️⃣ LIKE and SHARE this original post.

2️⃣ TAG TWO FRIENDS in the comments who love quail or might enjoy getting started!

3️⃣ Follow our FB page.

🇺🇸 That’s it! You’re entered!

Let’s grow the quail community, and give back while honoring those who have given so much.

From our farm to yours, thank you to all our veterans, past and present. Semper Fi! Drawing held the afternoon of Veterans Day (live)

Conecuh Creek Quail
Veteran Owned & Operated
NPIP Certified • AI Clean
NPIP #64-2269

03/11/2026

One of the absolute best things about our community is that you get to meet the most interesting people. Luke at Feathers and Figs Family Homestead has run incubator side by side battles (and knows about figs), Mel at MM Hobby Farm HI runs the poultry DNA testing company Chick Reveal (and loves bantams), Jenna at The Quail Life trains emotional support quail, and Lea and Rebecca of Southern Biophilliac Farm & Garden and Thieving Otter Farm ... I have suspicions that they are separated scions of Áine (goddess of rising animals and agriculture).

If you are not following them, consider doing so. Who else should get a shout out?

03/11/2026

PSA: the 15 gallon tote 2 pack if on sale at Costco. These hold 50 # of feed.

26/10/2026

Waimamalo feed supply just received a load of quail chicks and hens! The hens are 8 weeks old and are ready to lay eggs anytime now.

26/10/2026

Quail cards for identification fun!

Everyone that has hatched quail know the joy the little chaos nuggets bring. If you hatch different plumage types and get a rainbow it is even more special. I wanted to share something I do and share a tool that I love.

Thieving Otter Farm produced and sells Quail trading cards (https://www.thievingotterfarm.com/loot/p/cards) that feature full color pics from different angles and chick pics on most varieties. They are pretty awesome! The pictures are sharp and make identification of pure lines easy (compound heterozygotes can be tricky).

Sometimes I use the cards to double check my assessment of what I am looking at. If you click on the pictures, I will leave a comment on them with my thoughts.

For my local 808 residents, this batch will be at Waimanalo Feed Supply. Their parents are all solid Jumbo birds (see last post).

24/10/2026

BLUF: the lines are improving and are bigger than I thought. Also the dark horse in the race was the splash line with a chonky hen that took gold!

A few updates and information to post.

I question I sometimes hear is "how big are your birds?". Up until now the honest answer as been that I know that they are by and large Jumbo sized, but my scale broke and since until recently I have been breeding mostly for myself, I have not purchased another one. But I can now sort of answer that question!

I met the owner of a local pet snack company that wanted to see how large my birds are and he brought his scale. I will be honest that there were some surprises. In a future post I will write about why I did not track weights, but for now here are the things that I learned about my flock:

Keep in mind that they are 8 weeks old (two weeks away from standard jumbos are 10 oz minimum @ 10 weeks )

* My splash are a better line than I thought. There were a few chonky ones and the largest one was over 12 oz.

* The sparkly line is averaging between 8 and 9 ounces

* The Pearls are averaging the same but with more variance tending higher.

*the harder to s*x birds are heavier because, of course they are.

In case you didn't see in my previous post, Waimanalo Feed Supply is celebrating Flocktober with chicks (chicken) in the store. The quail chicks should be added on Monday (10/26)

24/10/2026

A lot going on here at Sweet Rain Quail:

Our friends at Waimanalo Feed and Farm Supply are in full swing Flocktober fest mode with chicken chicks happening in store beginning this weekend and quail chicks joining the fun on Monday.

It is just past midnight and I head the first peep from the hatcher.

I just finished s*xing and sorting birds so 8 wk old laying hens are available while they last. Mostly Sparkly Pearl and a few sparkly.

Big announcement mid to late November.

24/10/2026

An old friend of mine that has recently started raising quail came over to help me sort some birds and get a little hands on learning. While sorting, I found that I had quite a few more females than I previously thought ( most of the birds I had left were either not feather s*xable, or on the challenging side).

I was fortunate to find that I had enough homozygous sparkly hens to put together a breeding set for him. He had expressed an affinity for the pattern. So he is the proud owner of that covey now. Thanks Buddy, your help made the task more enjoyable and may your egg basket overflow.

13/10/2026

BLUF: 26%-30% feed for chicks, 20% for adults all non-medicated. Keep treats to a minimum.

I received an email asking a few questions about quail and I realized that I didn't make a post about feed so let's do that now. I have the equipment and the means to make my own feed. Is it cheaper? No, the opposite. I started to mill my own feed because for a short time, feed supply was uncertain and I wanted to ensure I could feed my birds through a supply chain issue. Is it better feed? Without a doubt. It is fresher and still retains all the nutrients that the ingredients bring. Do I sell feed? Sometimes. I saw an ad on the marketplace that had non GMO feed with a lot of bells and whistles for $4 a pound. That is roughly what I would have to sell at to make it worth it. Hard to take that when you can get feed that works well for about a $1 a pound.

Living in the 808 makes feed choices a bit limited. One thing I will say is learn to read feed tags and understand some of the information being presented there. Looks like I posted the nutritional recommendations earlier, but in a nutshell: quail have higher protein needs then chickens and their needs change over the course of their lives.

Chicks need 26-30% protein in their feed for at least the first 3 weeks of age. I hear you can get away with 24% but only if the amino acids are spot on. Game bird starter is recommended. It is a 30% feed that had sufficient amino acids that the birds need. For the first 3 weeks, it is a good feed. You can also use the 25% island game bird, but that is a full sized pellet so it would need to be broken into smaller size. It is also suggested that you can increase the amino acid load in the Island Game Bird 25 by grinding up whole fish and topping the feed.

Once they are adults they generally need 20%. There are a few bags in the Layena line that would come pretty close. You can also use duck pellets (19%) or flock raiser (20%) or the Start and Grow 18% crumbles (be sure to get non-medicated). Supplement with a calcium source and you will be all set for laying hens.

Why not just feed them Game Bird Starter through out their whole lives? Any unprocessed protein goes through the kidneys and is rough on them. Additionally, the excess protein increases ammonia in their waste, so they smell worse.