Quail Chicks Hatched -- WOW!!

<p>Quail chicks hatched – WOW!! How did I accomplish an 80% hatch rate? Well, I do follow specific procedures to ensure a better result. These procedures are working. I’ll talk about it today. Will it work for other eggs? I don’t know but you might try it and see if it works for your chickens or ducks or turkeys.  </p> <p>Before I get started on that, I want to take a minute and say welcome to all the new listeners and welcome back to the veteran homestead-loving regulars who stop by the FarmCast for every episode. Thank you for turning in for the podcast. I truly appreciate you all so much. Thank you.</p> <h2>Our Virginia Homestead Life Updates</h2> <h3>Garden</h3> <p>Today I’m going to start with the garden. Just this morning Scott and I harvested the rest of the sunflowers. All that is left out there are various heights of stalks with nothing on top. I see a bunch of tall green sticks with a few leaves. These latest sunflowers will be added to rest to be thoroughly dried. Once dried, we will get to pluck out all of the seeds. They will get an additional period of drying in a single layer just to make sure that they are completely dried and cured. Then I’ll store them in a mason jar. Well, I say A mason jar. More likely it will be many mason jars. I do have lots of half gallon jars and in a pinch I might use some of the gallon jars. I like to keep those for milk, but milking will end in a couple of months. If I can wait that long before getting into those seeds. We shall see how that goes.</p> <p>I picked a few green beans this morning while Scott was moving the newly cut sunflowers inside the building. The Mexican bean beetles have decimated the plants. Likely this is the last bit of green beans for this year. The plants may come back but by the time they do and recover enough to bloom, the weather will be turning cold. It was a good year. In years past the beetles have taken over before I got the first picking. This year the plants were so healthy it took a while for the pests to arrive. Next year I may even