How HP Murray Built a Quail Operation: Imports, Brooder Houses, Automatic Waterers & Quail Math

In this episode of the Poultry Nerds Podcast, we sit down with HP Murray of Gopher Ridge Farms for an honest, behind-the-scenes conversation about raising quail, building efficient farm systems, and how quail math can turn a small hobby into a full-time operation.

HP shares his journey from growing up on a farm, stepping away from agriculture, and then returning to it through quail after retirement. From early brooding mistakes to importing German quail lines, this episode is packed with real-world experience you won’t find in a textbook.

Topics covered in this episode include:

• How HP got started raising quail and what he learned the hard way
• Why quail quickly become a 7-day-a-week commitment
• Importing quail eggs from Germany and introducing new genetics
• Building your own quail lines through selection instead of constantly adding “new blood”
• Designing a brooder house for heat, ventilation, and ammonia control
• Moving away from stacked cages to a low-maintenance, one-level cage system
• Why automatic waterers can dramatically reduce daily labor
• Raising and managing gamebirds like chukars and bobwhites
• Lessons learned from decades of breeding, hatching, and scaling production

Whether you raise quail for eggs, meat, breeding, or business, this episode offers practical insight from someone who has lived it—mistakes, successes, and all.

👉 Subscribe to the Poultry Nerds Podcast for real poultry education, honest conversations, and experience-based learning.

Join Carey of Show Pro Farm Supply and Jennifer of Bryant's Roost as we delve into chickens and quail (mostly)  to help you enjoy your birds more and worry less. Backyard chicken keeping shouldnt be stressfull, let's get back to the simple days

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Transcript

0:41

Poultry nerds. We are here with the one, the only, yeah, we did HP Murray from Gopher Ridge Farms. How are we Held him down and beat him until he joined us. And then we lost him. Yeah, I think he's there now. How are you? Hp? Well, tell us about yourself and tell us how you're doing today. Tolerably tired. I'm doing great. Just been a long day. Y'all doing? I'm doing pretty good. Well, we were hoping you were gonna tell us about your backstory and how you got started in quail. Okay. Maybe I can remember that far back. Um, it was really. And as a young teenager and adult, we we quail hunted and we also trapped a lot of quail. We ate them as much as we did chicken. And so I knew about'em as a youngster. And then of course I decided I didn't want to farm. And I went in the insurance business and left the farm. And when I got ready to retire, I I said, I'm gonna get me some quail just to have to eat. I'll have time to take care of'em now. Didn't do any research, didn't do anything. And cix are not my wife's. And so I ordered me 100 chicks and they come and I'm going to brood them just like you would chickens. I get me a hundred watt night bulb and put them in there, stick'em out in the open. I get up tomorrow. I've got about eight or 10 left out of a hundred. They've all frozen to death. Well, I raised eight. That's what I wound up with. And somehow I got in touch with Robbie at James Marie Farms and got to talking with him. And of course, y'all know Robbie. He he done me like we've done a lot of other people. He put me in the business, right? And I got my first edge from him. And then as it began to unravel, I say I looked in about two years. I, I didn't have cages originally. I just did ha area, I guess is what you call it. I had two 50 foot long, 12 foot wide pens, and I just pulled on the ground. And the next thing I know that I had about 2000 birds. And I said, whoa, what am I doing? Mm-hmm. And it was all white birds at that, all Texas a and s that we don't have anymore, but I won't go there. Anyway I decided then I say I was talking with Robbie and he was putting thing, one thing in one ear and something was coming out, the other one. And I finally got some browns from somebody locally. And and then I got some from a boy in Tennessee. And I started, I crossed those out and started my own line. And of course in LA I say later on I got some of Robbie's j mfs and then I started I don't know whether y'all remember him or not, but Mr. Vale that used to have veils quail at Wisconsin. I bought some snowflakes from eggs from him. And when he sent me, sent'em in the phone, I says, oh, that's how they do this. And so from there I say that was before even Robbie, I guess. I started putting a few in a little home and let see if I could sell'em. So I get on Facebook and this went on for several years. And then finally it just evolved into seven days a week, 24 7. And I look at these people y'all tell me how to do it. I see these people that have a full-time job and they talk about how many eggs they're shipping a year. I don't got a full-time job. Mm-hmm. And I know how many eggs I'm shipping a year. I wouldn't have time to work and do what some of these people said they're doing. I just, I don't know. I mean, I guess I done got old slow, but like I say, mine just evolved in the, what it is. And of course everybody knows once you start hatching I mean, you know, meth is nothing compared to hatching cix. And so, I That is so true. I've been doing it ever since. And I guess when they put me down there beside the wife, I have to quit, but it won't be because I wanted to. And that's basically where I came from. So you've been doing this for a while? Oh yeah. I did leave some of my imports out, didn't I? That's actually what I was fixing to ask you about. Mr. Kaya, I believe is the way he pronounce his name in Germany. He and I and William Foster we were always talking to each other on Facebook. We, when William started he started with me for whatever reason, I don't know. And he got a lot of birds from me. And then he started talking about importation. And I'd done talk to Robbie about importation and I knew how difficult that could be. And so, one day I get this call from my postman at the post office and he said, I got about an egg box of eggs for you. I said, no, I ain't bought any eggs. And he said, well, I got some up here. I said, okay, I'll be up there in a few minutes. And. Kay told me he had sent me some of them, but now mind you, he sent'em on Thanksgiving Day, that's when he messaged me. Thanksgiving day. Oh. This is December the 31st. Oh, wow. And so I go to the post office and I got the video. I can upload the video and show everybody me opening that box of eggs. There was 140 eggs and I had some, I don't remember the exact number, but it was between 30 or 40 of them. And those zigs, that's not bad. I got the sparkly Pharaoh German sparkly Pharaoh. I got the German sparkly Italian and the gentleman Pearl, sparkly Pearl. And I, you know, I knew. William was talking about it, and I talked with him about it, but I really weren't, you know, I wasn't expecting until he, to he kind of, message me and said, eggs is in the mail. And so I I'm gonna get in trouble. I turned around and he didn't have game birds as we have in the United States, so I boxed him up, used the same phone that he sent mine in 140. I sent him Bob Whites, chuckers, and pheasants, and of course I'm doing it, you know, they go through customs in New York. I said, okay. Got it made. Mm-hmm. Lo and behold, I get a notice in Miami. They went through customs in Miami a few days later. Well, several days later I get a update. They're in Frankfurt, Germany. I said, oh boy I got him from Game Birds now. Kept waiting for him to miss me to see he got his eggs and it rocked on about a week. No, I ain't got'em. I said, well, they're in Germany. I don't why you ain't getting them. And he says, yeah, I can see where they're at. And then, you know, a few days later, my same mailman calls me, got a box of eggs up in for you. No, I ain't ordered any. I got a box of eggs up in for you. I go pick up the eggs and it's my eggs. I sent him, they had opened them in Germany, saw what it was, taped them up with their custom tape and just returned them to me. They said a word. You know, I'm sitting there when I look in that box. I said, where's the handcuffs? Because I know I'm going. But I have taken those and I got some really messed up colors from them. I didn't understand and still don't, I'm not sharp as facts and the wood pile. So, when it comes to genetics and I kept crossing it out until I have just about every color that we had in the us. I got sparkly jeans in it now. And of course I didn't realize when I was doing all this, it makes pretty birds the way it changes the patterns on the everything. But there again, like I say, I didn't know nothing about homozygous and heterozygous. I guess had, could turn it squeal from Germany. And I now have. Well, like I say, I've got'em, I got'em in Egyptians. I got'em in Italians. I got'em in, I got'em in Pharaoh. I don't have them in PZ yet. I hadn't even tried that one. They're enough trouble as they are on now, but I've got it. I've got it pretty well introduced to my entire line in some form. And you read, you know, some people say why you want to do that. Well, if you familiar with the German line, it's all together. It's a different bird than what we've known in the States. It's even different from, they're different from Robbie's, JMF. They just I don't know. They just have a plumper breast. Rounder breast. And to me I like that big breast, when you pick him up. I don't want that breastbone cutting my fingers. And they seem to be a, have a different structure. So I've tried to, you know, get as much as I could of the German in without just getting it, everything messed up with sparkly. I mean, I've got stuff that's not, but I mean, I'm still working with it to to get the blood and not get that particular gene, if that, if you understand what I'm saying. Mm-hmm. And that, that, that's the story on my Germans. And I still, I got blacks out of that. You noticed. I left that out. I got blacks out of it and they were the worst genetically of anything I'd ever seen. And I haven't I have yet. And I've had these, what. I got'em in nine 19 or 20. I can't remember. I'd have to go back and look at the videos, but I have shipped some of the eggs, but I have not posted them on my website to yet, because I'm just now getting them to where they're a decent bird. They've always bred true. But they were just small. They didn't, I just, they just weren't my birds. And so I kept on for sentiment reasons and invested the fortune in them. And I've got'em. I may sell some this year. I don't know. I ain't made up my mind yet other than not just sometime I'll throw some in for somebody for just a special occasion, you know, not that I'm trying to market them because, i'm yet to find them of that quality, to be honest with you. But everything else I got from Germany was good quality. And I was surprised at that age of egg hatching, you know, even at 20%. So, I was thrilled with it. Mm-hmm. And that's that's where we was at. I mean, that's fantastic from going overseas like that and back. And for that many days you had a pretty good hatch with those. Well, I say the, my Pharaoh and stuff like I say, is primarily I've only I've only got eggs from that weren't my eggs from three people since I've been in the business. I got some from you, Jennifer. I got some from Michael one time, and of course from Robbie. And what I have done, like I say I have just developed my own, you know, I've just like you guys, I've just selected and bred and crossed and, you know, when people ask me, you know, I, I need new blood. Well, if you sit up, right, I don't necessarily condone you need new blood. If you're not, yeah, I understand. But when, like I say, when you got many versions, we have I, I don't see mixing something else in with it. And like I told you when I got the the Pharaoh from you, I wanted them for a purpose. And and I've got two eggs from'em or so far. Okay. So they fixing the fire up pretty quick. I I got a whole, a complete cage of'em. I don't remember. I don't count. That's illegal to count quail. But but I say I my lines as you can say about yours, and I'm curious, say about his, and they're mine. I made them, I give, I, I say I give Robbie a lot of credit not for my birds per se, but for his tutelage of me and and the way he helped me along the way. And because, like I say, I went in it blindsided, not knowing anything nor intended to, to do this at the scale I'm doing it. And, um, quail math hits and it's a thing, but it just has has happened. And I say, I guess, I guess I can blame Robbie for that. When I decided that I wanted the Texas a and m I say I, I knew nothing about. I mean, I had, I've had Facebook since Facebook was invented, but I knew nothing about, you know, all these online stuff we had today you know, 15 years ago weren't there, 16, whatever it was. And I don't even remember who gave me Robbie's number, but I gave him a call. And if you've ever, if you knew Robbie, when you call Robbie, you better have your lunch pack because he was going to chat for a while. And he told me, he explained to me where where he got his a and m from. And and. Telling me the story, how the, he got'em from an Amish man up in I don't remember it was Ohio or Pennsylvania. But anyhow, the guy had actually worked with Texas a and m University on this program. And when they abandoned everything or quit with it, I don't know whether they abandoned what, but anyhow, he brought some of the birds back and Robbie had went to buy a load of foam. That's where he got his shipping from. And he happened to see those white birds and got talking with the guy, and I'm not going to tell you how much he said he paid for all the eggs that man had, but it was a lot. And he came home and and he started them from that. And I say that's where I got mine from, and I'm trying to remember. I got some from somebody else after I got, um, I believe it. Oh, shoot. The Rock, the girl in Florida. Anyway she, the Quail book, Alex Alexandra Quail book. Alex, yeah. Mm-hmm. I got some from her one time when we first started out. And but anyway mine came from Robbie and then he would he was telling me about the I believe it was India, or I can't remember exactly which country it was, but he was going to import some more white birds. They were supposed to be bigger than these dotted whites that we got today. And, he went through all the paperwork, took him, I forgot how many months it was, over a year to get, to be able to import these eggs, imported them, cost an arm and a leg, and none of them hatched. Oh, no. So he goes back to re to get a reorder on him. And I, I didn't know this because I never get it. You only have 30 days on that paperwork and once the 30 days is if you gotta buy it all over again. Oh, no. Suppo, I guess the way it was. And so he wound up having to do it all over again if he wanted those eggs. So, he abandoned that and just stuck, stuck with what he had. And but yeah he'd give me some of everything he had, but one, he didn't ever give me any, let me have any ban. And I've always wanted to see some of them, just to see'em. But hadn't got any, well, I know where some's at, but I haven't got'em yet. But I will say this about Robbie. And then I'll, and then I'll go on when my wife died in 2016 and Robbie was the first man to call me and send me a card up the north. And he don't know how much I know he was having issues at that time, and he don't know how much that meant to me. That meant more than all the bird information that he'd give me to know that. He was thinking about me, and he did, I, he did something else at his church in remembrance of her. Um, he and he sent me a photo of it. He bought a plaque in remembrance of her and put it in his hand, in his church or was, and I say I, I know they some that probably like the rest of us they, they don't have, you know, don't have a good good thoughts about him. But he was special for me and I hated seed. Oh. No, we didn't lose him. I bet he was on an iPad and forgot to plug it up. So we've had some technical difficulties with HP and we're muddling through. Is Robbie still alive? Do you know? I think so. I think that he just kind of got outta the quail drama, but I think he is, I'm not a hundred percent sure. Well, how come it's black but he's not there? That doesn't make sense. Yep. Now I can hear you. Can you hear us? Yep. I can. Yeah, I've talked to about, I was getting feel like a disc jockey. Nice. One of those guys on the news doing a monologue. Well, tell us about your building. Is your brooder building about done? What do you got going on there? Don't you asked some personal questions? No, I ain't done, are bird people ever done? Oh goodness. I, oh I'm using it. I've got it. I got the import stuff done. I got the water in it. I got the heating and the lights in it. I just I haven't got all the, I haven't got all the brewers built yet. I've got. I think seven, six or seven, I think, in there now. And I got the other the material to put'em together and put'em in. I just I I stopped when I got these six or seven that I got in the house now, I stopped. I have revamped my entire operation. I have went, I have done, I don't have, no, nope, I have some, but I don't use any stack cages anymore or any hanging cages. Mine's all one cage level and the poop goes on to dirt and we get it up once a year or whenever we need to for the garden. And I have built, I say completely new cages. They, they're primarily wood with just wire bottoms. And I really like what it's done. That sounds real low maintenance. It is like I say, all you gotta do is walk out there and feed them and pick up eggs. But that brooder house, that's the greatest investment I've ever made. I mean, I told him, I said, here I am. When I started, I was 70, 75 years old, and I said, here I am fixed at$20,000 in a building at 75 to raise chicks in you. But like you said, what else she do it, it's better than meth. Mm-hmm. And don't leave the health issues either. I mean, I'm, my health is still good. In fact, I had a checkup this week and wednesday. And she told me, keep doing what you doing. It's working. So that's right. That's good. But yeah I don't know. I like I say, you don't have to worry with that building with them babies in it. I have to worry about it getting too hot, not hot enough. But it is really great. And I probably I, my brooders is probably not what's atypical in the business. I got the idea from the cowra people using the cowra, you know, for brewers. And I wound up having a couple of'em when I bought a full of out that was in the quail business and I took, I says, I'm going to cut'em half in two and just, you know. I put a bottom in, a wire bottom in it, and a wire top on it. And I did, and they were kind of heavy to move around, so I had already had bought some sheet metal to make poop trays with, so I took them and I ripped them down in the 11 inch strips, put the ends together and rivet them together and make me a oblong. Rooter just like that, a rove with my wire bottom and a wire top. And I for the first, I do have poop trays there in there. For the first week I, I got the same stuff you put in the bottom of your incubator up the shelf liner. I put that in there over the half inch hardware to begin with. Okay. And then when they get big dust, they can stand on that. I take that out and like I say, give'em the extra ventilation by that time. They don't need all that heat. And it, it just worked super good. I don't have to worry about'em getting in the corner piling up, you know, they rounded corners. Mm-hmm. And it, it just working great. I got automatic waters in them. Oh. I'm in love with automatic waters. They're the best things since sliced bread. I know everybody thinks I'm crazy, but don't knock it till you try it. That's right. I bought the premier one, the round ones with the float in them. I mounted them on a four by four, took a piece of four, four posts, mounted them on it, put'em inside the key, the brooder. And put a tube four down there for'em to get up on to be able to reach the water. They get up there and drink, get down. If they walk through the water, they, it ain't deep enough to drown them. It I mean, it just blow my mind. I said, I'm gonna try it. And I mean, with the with the jars and the lids, especially with pinehaven or shaving, or even with towels, the, they wick it will wick the water out. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I don't have, you don't have no wicking with this. I mean, they go up there and drink and if they get in it, you know, it don't went in the bottom of the brooder. Mm-hmm. I'm Googling it right now while we're talking. So I've got the ones that are like that. They're red. Yep. Mm-hmm. Probably about five, six inches round. Yep. Mm-hmm. And I set mine the float about midway. Mm-hmm. And I just put some grid in there. I ain't putting nothing in mind. I say I guess adjust it to where, you know, like I say, it might be a quarter inch deep in water, and now my breeders, I got it open up full blast, you know? Yeah. Because, and there again, that's something else that I do that a lot of people don't comprehend. I got one water to, to the ca to the cage. Mm-hmm. If I got 150 birds in that cage, they one water in there. Yeah. They, and you. But those waters are big. Yep. I mean it's, yeah. They big, big mine's like six inch round, I think. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They big, they hold a good bit of water. Actually I have mine, um, attached to a five gallon bucket in my brooder that I built. I built a brooder that looks like a bookshelf, right. And, you know, I've got'em in there and I drill a hole in the back, ran the tube through, hooked the thing up, and I set it down. And I want to build, I'm gonna get some quarter inch hardware cloth, just a little bit of it. Mm-hmm. And I'm gonna build like a foot by foot square that's raised up to put the water on top of it so they don't get nothing in it. And that's gonna be nice. Every time my phone rings, it cuts me off. Well, you're popular. It's nice to be popular. That's right. I don't know why it wouldn't work on my laptop man. But any, but anyway, yeah, that I got in my brooder house, I've got, I've only got a five gallon bucket with a float in it, but I got the water running to it permanently. You know, I and just like I have on my layers and grow out, so I got a big drum with a float in it, and I just got the water from the well hooked up to it, and I'd say, if something don't break, I don't worry about water, and all I have to do is feed up. Do you still have the checkers and the other birds? Yeah. Mm-hmm. I, well I say uhhuh, I've got hush now. I've got chuckers and I've got a few Bob Whites. I I lost my pheasants when the hurricane comes. Well, not from the hurricane because I caught'em from the hurricane, but in that February we had to smoke and I lost all the pheasants I had. They left, they in the neighborhood round and about, and chuckers was gone and I'd already traded my Bob wife. I got tired of them and I traded them for pheasants. And so, I hatched, um, blue coolers of chuckers this past. Tell us about checkers. Why do people want checkers? They they're more flight here than Bob whites, and they're, if you've ever missed with Tennessee Reds, you know how crazy they are. These chuckers are two notches above a Tennessee red. I mean, they are idiot squared. Oh, wow. And you get within 10 yards of'em, and they flush and they great for these hunting reserves. Yeah. And I didn't realize it till last year, and I won't say which one, but these there's a religion that uses them in their worship. Huh. Yeah, I had some come from Florida and bought some for me, and I asked, what you doing with these? And they explained it to me. But they, you know, I've had'em for years, several years, and I've never ate one. I got the butcher some and see what they say. How big are they? They probably pound and a half. Oh, okay. They're smaller than a pheasant. I was gonna say, from what I've seen, they're smaller than a pheasant. Bigger than a jumbo. Yeah. They'll they, I'd say probably pound and a half maximum. But another thing you think, Vince, sex in a solid colored quail. You can't vent sex a chucker and you can't feather sex. It. You just, I, all these years I ain't learned hell yet. They supposedly the male I have a little spur in his head will be bigger than the end. Well, now you tell me you're growing them out. One may be growing faster, doesn't, is that the reason his head's bigger? I mean, so I had, I don't know how many thousand eggs last year and sold all the chicks and I kept me 300 at chuckers and grow them out. And that's when I'm, I built new cages for them. And that's what gave me the idea to redo my quail cages as well. I built'em out of I had extra lumber from my brewer house. And I had some two by tens left over. So I used that two by 10 lumber to be on my Tucker cages with roll out cages. And I put them jokers in there and I'd go out there and they'd be 10 or 15 of'em dead. I said, what is going on? Go back next. They didn't be that me anymore. I put three. Oh, I had cages there for 300. I say 300. And I says, I something wrong. I got, they just ain't going stay gauge stuff. It ain't gonna work. So I went to work to fix my flight pen back, and by the time it took me a little bit to do that because I don't know, it just did. And by the time I got my flight pen where I could put'em in it again, I had 65 left. Outta 300. They had killed each other to that, and I put'em in there. And soon as I did, then they got in that 50 foot flat pin. They was fine. No more deaths. Well, how do you know if you can't sex them? How many females you have laying eggs on? Honestly, you can tell a female how many eggs I nore. Really? I, like I say, I can't. I can't, I still can't. I'm sure that they has to be a method, you know? But I've not mastered it yet and don't intend to I'm going to, I've done, so part of mine I, it's easier for me to buy eggs and hats than it is to try to keep'em and you know, you know, have the edge and answer from that, because. I say I can, I got a buddy that sells it, put me pretty reasonable, so, it's better to let him feed'em to me. I'm going in fact the guy from the Philippines that come got some of my attorneys he got part of my chuckers as well, and I had blue scale. I got a few blue scale. He bought those. He wanted them worser than I did. So, I I'm out of the, I've got a few, I got a few gamble left and I got a buddy I'm going to give them to soon as I. I get up in there, tell him to come get'em. No I'm, and my bought wife I still got a few of them not by a boy that had bought tour eggs from me. He he bought a bunch of Bob White eggs and incubated them, and he hacks and Bob Whites they like buttons. 98% of them are hacks when you put it in the incubator. Mm-hmm. And he called me, he says, I got 300 Bob Watts. I ain't got no brewer to put'em in. Can you help me sell'em? Well, I called a few people, posted them, and he sold a few of them. And that was on the weekend. That Monday night, he called me, he says, I am gonna bring the rest of these quails to your house and I'm going to give'em to you. So he brought me over 200 and I threw them in the brewer house. And I sold part of'em. Got, I may have about 30 or 40 left, but I thought I'd cage them up to see how the, you know, I might sell a few eggs off of them this year. But I it just, I don't know I, my wife is just not my cup of tea either. I guess I'm finally getting old. And the cix, they they work so much easier and smoother. And yeah, I just for me, the Bob wires, I just like the sound of them. Oh yeah, I've got'em I've got'em all around my place now. We've got about. I don't know. At one time we had like selling cubbies around. I live in a, I won't call it a subdivision, but there's a lot of homes out here around we all have acreage, you know, but there's a lot of people around me and you can hear'em all around different places when they, and I even have some every spring there's some come up to my come up to my attorneys old males will hunting females. But when I, one of mine gets loose, I don't even try to catch him. I just let him go. And if predators don't get him, good for him. They say we, we've got a few cubbies. In fact, I have a, I tried to trap, I did trap because there was a covey'em at my daughter's house on their place. And I set a trap down and I caught them. And I turned a pair of'em loose and. Brought the rest of'em, put'em in the after when I had Bob Whites on the ground, put'em in the pen with them and I go back there the next day and mine had killed them. I put in there. So they didn't like the outsiders? No, they weren't. They tear oil and so, so the buttons, they're forever getting out right out in the barn. So anytime I have to open the cages, we close the big doors, we close'em all up, and. Then we open the cages because you know, they're gonna get out and I'll stand there and when they get out and I'll look real hard and I'm like, oh, that's just a male. That's fine, it's fine. But if it's a hen man, we'll tear the whole barn apart. Looking for Well, well, was it you that sent me some button eggs or somebody else? We, um, well we did some trading ones. But you said that they didn't like your, you the raccoons item or something. Yeah. Anyway I, I had, I think it was seven I had out there the other day that I had some somewhere. I don't even know where I got'em. But anyway I just put'em in the brooder pen with the attorneys. And then when the attorneys wrote off, I just, I ain't got a, I ain't got a pen fixed for the buttons, so I just take the attorneys out to grow out. Leave the buttons in the brooder, get another patch of return, say go in there with'em. And I got there one day and there's two eggs on the side. I do the same thing. And I, like I say, I got talks on my brooders and I got just little flaps over there, handholds where I can reach in there and get the feed or whatever and move it around. And evidently I forgot to clo put anything on top of it. And I went out there and opened the brewer barn door up and looked and there was two white ones out running around in the brewer and the brewer house. And before I knew it, wonder what ones that flew out the door just, and I miss with buttons. They don't come back. They're gone. Mm-hmm. Well, I catch that and put it back in there. And then I look and there's a black one over there. I catch him and I go on about my business and left the door open. So, like I say it, it'll get hot in that window house and I come back to Rick and walk back in it, check on her, and there that little white, when she come back in, never had one to come back before I dipped her up with a dip and put her, we in there. But I reckon I'm going to have. Drag out mold pen that I used to keep mine in. And yeah, the squirrel's got my purse. That's squirrels. It was squirrel. Yeah. Squirrel killed them. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So I have some grown out there for orders right now and um, I find the buttons are more like turkeys raising them. They'll kind of wanna stay warm and they won't be as active. And so I just looked at'em and they're all bunching up underneath the heater plate, and I'm thinking, it's not that cold. What are you fools doing? You know? And. They really, they're between two and three weeks. They should be coming off that heat anyway. And they were just all bunched up. So I grabbed me up a bunch of Egyptians and threw in there that were like a week old. Of course, they start running around like spas and the buttons are like, Ooh, we need to run like them and mm-hmm. And everything's fine. They they're tropical, I tell you that they, the hotter it is, the better they like it. Yeah. But I think there's quail in general, isn't it? No. The turex don't. Well, when you brood them, they like to be hot, that's for sure. Yeah. The breeders like to be cold. You talking about your brooder house staying hot, you need to put some blown insulation in there. It, it's completely insulated. That's why it's so hot. Oh, all the brooders putting off the heat. Yep. Mm-hmm. I gotta put a, I gotta put, I gotta put a squirrel cage fan in it for ventilation, because that's another thing. How do y'all deal with the ammonia in those quail barns? I have a 36 inch fan. I have a 18, I have a 18 inch fan in mine. Mm-hmm. Yeah I talked to my air conditioner man. He said, I can stick you a squirrel cage up there in the ceiling and blow it through the vents. And because I, you know, I'm running maybe, I don't know, somewhere between 500 and a thousand chicks out there and with no sand. Yeah. And when you, when I closed the doors of the night because, you know, animals. But when I opened up was the morning it just burns my eyes, pneumonia. So I, yeah, you need a fan. I'm thinking about, I'm really, I'm thinking about putting one of those little split units, the little individuals, you know, for one room, you know? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Put one of those in there so it would circulate there. And if they needed heat, they'd do heat. And if they need cool. It'll cool'em. Well, I do not find that they need heat. That's not the problem. Um, but a exhaust fan would fix your problem. And I've gone back and forth on a mini split, and my AC guy taught me out of it. And what I got was, it's a window unit, but it's, it sits down, like, it doesn't take up the window, it sits down on the sash. So it's lower and I can still, if I was tall enough, I would still be able to see out the window. Mm-hmm. But I too short, but it kinda, the window and hairs a little higher. Yeah. Mm-hmm. So she can't see over it. Can't see, even if it wasn't in there, the trees. Um, but yeah it kind of acts like a mini split, but you know, the dander just chews them up. And I think it lasted about one and a half summers. And so I'm already on my second one that that's what I was, in my mind I'm saying I know how the house area is and you know, if you ain't changing them filters, and this is, I mean, like you say that joker, he starts molting the time he comes out of the egg and he gonna quit till you pull his head off. The dander. The dander, horrible. I do keep a box fan in there on low, and I went over to David's shop and went shopping and found some AC filters that he hadn't, he didn't need for anymore because the weird size. And I taped one to the back of my box fan and I was kind of shocked at how much dander it pulled. Mm-hmm. In just like a week. I need to change it already. I had, um, we had a really bad water leak in our house and I had to get a air scrubber for that. And I have put the air scrubber where my chicks are, man, you turn that thing on and it pulls air through the, um, it's got a filter, like a he and cooling filter. Mm-hmm. It'll pull the air through there, wide open it, it only runs about 600. CFM, so it's not real intense. Right. But it will pull all that mess out of the air. I used, Terry did a show where he made a box out of air filters with box fan. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And he also showed, there's a, um, company that makes a box fan that has an attachment with a filter on the back of it. And I found I use those for the longest and they work really well. You have to clean'em like once a week air hose and blow'em off outside. Right. And they make a huge difference. Yeah. I, oh, I say I've talked my, on the mini split. I talked myself out of that. I'm I think I'm just going to put like I say, cut me a vent hole in one gable end and just stick me off. Stick me a squirrel cage in there and then call it a day. If it gets dusty, it just gets dusty. Yeah. Well I can control the temperature in like it's on right now, and I can control the temperature in mine with the windows or mm-hmm. The big door, you know, I might leave it a couple inches up or something. Right. But I don't have a predator problem, so I might, if I was you, I would do a Windows. Yeah. I got I got cameras of course everywhere and about 10 30 done up. It went off. I got wild hogs coming in now. No. Yeah, no, that's the second time. I had one once before. It's fortunately just one. And I got the first one, but I don't know. If you don't get rid of him quick, they gonna be a lot more. Mm-hmm. It's it's crazy. He don't even mess with the, I got feed stacked up, you know, on pallets there. And he don't pay the feed no attention. He just roots in the drop. Its because somebody's feeding him. He's a big old joker. I got him on camera. He I told my son-in-law, they need to come over here and just pull their side by side down there and park it and leave it for a day or two and then come back over here one night and just wait on him. When he gets in the edge of the woods down there, behind the house where he is at. I said, y'all can kill him down there, if you will. You didn't use them to coming up seeing the vehicle there all the time, but we haven't got that for you yet. I'll wait till he eats a bunch of quail first. God, I can't wait to get rid of our pigs. I know we talk about my pigs too much, but dang. I was in the barn the other day and they were trying to come through my 14 foot door, and I'm pushing on it and screaming. And finally somebody heard me and they came and got some feed and got'em away from the barn. But we've had to lock'em out of the, we call it the paddock, the. The field that's behind the barn. We've had to lock'em outta there now. And then this morning they went through the electric fence and I'm just like, April 7th cannot come fast enough. Well see what's crazy? Wasn't it crazy? But when I'm moved, I built this house here in, we built it 76 and I moved in 77 and I was living on the farm, the family farm down there. And I had hogs. We had hundreds and hundreds we had big fair in the house, two big feed lots. And that's what I was doing my part-time, you know, when my free time when I would be off of work. And so when I built this house and moved back over here, I brought 30 Road South with me. Yes. And all my. Feed equipment, corn, and all was on the farm. I'd have to drive eight miles, make feed, bring it back. And I'd done that for, I don't know, for a long time. I hadn't, they were completely off the ground. Everything was on floor. Pens ends. But it it it gotta be too much work to haul feed like that. And so I finally just, sold out. Quit Bacon's good. But it ain't worth it. It's not that's kinda like arm, and I don't want nobody to quit, but I don't wanna have to go back to doing it for a living either. Mm-hmm. No. My pig days are almost behind me. Yeah. I'll let somebody else grow'em and I'll just pay'em. Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm. Well, HP has been fun talking to you. Yep. I wish we could have had things work a little different. It's all right. That's what editing is for. That's right. Okay. So, but you need to come back more often if you need a take to let me know. Okay. Hey, I'll do, when you get a chance, if you would shoot me a picture of. The new cages that you built. Okay. I'd be interested in something outdoor like that. That's mm-hmm. Low to no maintenance. Okay. Yeah it's pretty simple. Like I say, the backs are one by eight and then just frame out the doors on top and the front. I take one by sixes and split them and put them across the front to make a space for the egg to roll out and a space for him to get his head through to eat. I the feeder and mount the water on it. And then, like I say, I got wire on the bottom and the one, one by one and a half and or one half by one, and then the same thing on top. And then I made my top got hinges on'em where I can lift them up or I got little openings in, in the middle where I, you know, if I just wanna open it up and stick my hand in the cage, I can. And it so far I like it. It, it looks kind of awkward because I got I built'em square and then, you know, had to tilt. Mm-hmm. The backs up higher for it to roll out, but nevertheless it ain't about looks, it's about efficiency. That's right. Right. Mm-hmm. Well, send us a picture and we'll post it. Okay. I'll get some, I think I already got some, I think I should somebody, I have my watering system set up and everything. Yep. Okay. That'd be nice. Okay. I'll do it. You for y'all. Thank you. Thank y'all. Have a good evening. All right. Bye. bye-Bye. All right. Don't leave.