Quail: A painting study and getting my quail house ready for the Storm

We have been in a very unusual freeze here on the shores of the Northeast. We certainly have Winter, but never a continued freeze as we have had this year. After a solid week of below freezing temperatures, we were given a window of about half a day of warmer temps. I knew this would not last and would freeze up again. I thought, now is my chance to move my quail closer to the house for ease of care during the next freeze.

In previous posts I have mentioned my quail. I am a long time Chicken keeper but am new to quail and thus far I LOVE them. And, being an artist who loves to paint and draw animals, it stands to reason I'd use them as models as well. This is a piece I finished today from a sketch I had done when my current quail first hatched.

When they were first hatched I did a few pencil studies of them and the eggs as of yet unhatched. I was looking at them today as I have come full circle and am currently incubating a clutch of eggs from my own quail. The first batch I am trying to hatch from my own hatchlings.

Now, back to moving them closer to the house. I have my new chicken house right up next to our house at the end of the building closest to my studio . There is a door to the outside in that hall and a bit of a roof overhang, so we moved their new house there to make it easier to care for them in Winter ; boy was I glad I did when this freeze first hit.

The quail, however, were in a pen in my fenced veg garden which is a bit of a walk from the house. This became more and more trying as the cold and ice continued on. Therefore, we got the clue of an afternoon melt, and we moved them to a smaller pen by the woodpile closer to the house and the door near the chickens.

Here you can see @winstonalden raking up as best he can the hard frozen ground to let the run settle more flat. Being a good ole' New Englander, his "workpants" are a pair of worn out Nantucket Reds. Locals might know what I am talking about, everyone else will think, "Pink Troussers"? Ah, not "pink", but "Nantucket Red", but I digress.

Part of their move was also to include my hanging a heat lamp. The red type I use for when the chicks are young in a brooder. I usually have a regular white light for them, but with the cold I wanted them to have some form of heat. In order to get the nest box to close we had to drill a bit to allow the cord to come out and still snuggly fit the lid.

Don't worry that nest box got cleaned out and restrawed. This was the 'keeper' pen for my hens before they got their new home.

Then we got them in, all snuggled and tight in their homes. See them basking in the warm red glow of their heat whilst outside rages on the freeze!

They were settled and then came our 'thaw'. It was joyous, really. The sun beat down and it actually got about 40 F. And then it rained and rained. I believe my better half posted about dealing with our generator and flooding garage here.

Let's just say my new quail arrangement went from this:

To this, it a very short amount of time.

As annoying as that river of water might have seemed, it was in fact glorious. The animals water was not frozen. I could get to chores without freezing hands in seconds. Yet, we knew it would not last. Even the sea became open water again for that afternoon, but the next day we were back to this:

And now the quails house as this, a skating pond with my Adirondack chairs frozen in place.

Here we are now, two weeks into this freeze, save that one day of flooding, and it's still bitterly cold. We are told tomorrow and this week we are to finally see above freezing temps during the day with talk of a balmy 50F on Friday. I can tell you, if that is the case there will be many posts about #walkwithme as I shall be so excited to be out and about further than a few hundred yards from the house. Although, This is a #walkwithme in a way, as my daily walks have literally been, to the quail, to the chickens, to the shore's edge, back inside for warmth.

I hope your day is warm, plain and simple. Whether you are inside by a fire with a hot cuppa or basking on a Caribbean beach: warm. I just hope for warm for myself and therefore for all of you.

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