Way back in the fall we started up a quail project where my 4th and 5th grade ELP students incubated and hatched quail eggs. This project has continued and we now have four mating pairs. From these pairs we have plenty of eggs and one of our 7th grade homerooms has taken on the challenge of hatching the eggs of our original quail.
This entire quail project has been quite interesting to follow. We are all in this together learning and figuring things out. We have quail all over in various cages at student homes, teacher homes, and school.
Recently we attempted to release some quail in a courtyard at one of our schools. It was an experiment because we were not sure if they would fly away or remain. We are happy to report that after a few weeks the quail have found the courtyard to be a place called home. We have lost only one baby quail so far, but still have a mating pair laying eggs daily and two younger quail.
This whole piece is interesting. The courtyard was created to remember a student who died. Nicole was a student at Hoover Elementary School. Nicole Wooldridge, 9, died in May 2001 after battling neuroblastoma cancer for most of her life.
A cool thing emerged from the courtyard and that was a pair of ducks who mated and raised ducklings in the courtyard each year. This year was the first time that the ducks did not return. We find it only ironic that we had a successful year of hatching quail and found it fitting to continue the tradition of nature and the life cycle.
While we are working through this whole experiment I had a 7th grade homeroom class take on the challenge of hatching quail. They would come in the morning, lunch, and after school to check the temperature and rotate the eggs. This past Wednesday, May 15th, was the 23rd day of incubation. We were not sure if any eggs would hatch because often times the first eggs quail lay are not the strongest and it takes time to develop good quality eggs.
We were thrilled to have three quail hatch. We then added a fourth on that Thursday and Friday we had to help one guy hatch giving us a total of five.
Three are doing quite well. One of the original quail that hatched died Friday. He had a serious neck problem. Saturday morning my son and I found the quail that needed help hatching had died also. This is part of nature and somethings that we can talk about and learn from as a class.
So, with one week left of school what are we going to do with the quail? My son wants to help raise them so with only three quail we will be building a cage to help take care of them at my house over the summer. This should be one interesting story to unfold.
During the week we do livestream the quail via Google Hangout and YouTube so be sure to tune in. We run it live starting around 8 – 8:30 am Central time.
The quail are now 5 days old and it is amazing how much stronger and bigger they have become in such a short amount of time.
Here are several videos and images from our quail adventures in the past few weeks. I will be adding to this set every couple of days.
And last a short video documenting the hatching of our quail named Oreo
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