Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

This is 'The Quail that came Home'! Quail are not known for their homing instincts, and aside from the fact they are somewhat vulnerable to predators, giving them free range in your garden is not usually recommended as they have a rather strong tendency to head for the nearest hedge or bush and make themselves totally invisible. So when this little chap (or chappess) decided to take full advantage of the lid to the brooder box being opened up and fly directly out of the barn (towards a very grassy bank with the moor beyond), well, we thought that was it!!! BUT some two hours later it was back, circling the brooder box where its mates were and demanding to be let in!! David has almost finished our 'all singing, all dancing' aviary which is just as well: this little one needs room to fly!!
How unlike our young chickens who are happy to potter about, eating grass and enjoying the sunshine and then simply sit and rest and watch the world go by... We have an idea that next year we may give some quail eggs to a broody bantam (small chicken) and see if she can then raise them and if so, it will be really interesting to see if the quail's instinct NOT to roam away from their home will be just the same or less. Quail eggs are tiny (look out for photos later) so it may be that even a bantam may crush them but it would be great to see if we could make this work.
Getting one species of poultry to hatch eggs from another species does work: we have had chickens raising ducks before now and all goes well until the young ducklings discover water. At that point the chicken becomes very confused as her 'babies' take to the pond and she is left screeching at the water's edge. Mother ducks of course take their ducklings to water and 'teach' them how to swim from a very early age but the desire/ability to swim is obviously inbuilt in the duck too - as this little story shows.