On the Friday after we got back from our honeymoon, someone *cough cough* hubby *cough cough* left the door unlocked on the quail pen.  The quails got out, and Devin the puppy played with them until they were dead.  Four quails gone.  Disaster!

The next day, I saw Devin pawing at the deck and whining.  I had the feeling there was something under there.  I took a look, and sure enough, there was a quail stuck under the deck boards.  She must have popped over our sprinkler hideaway, gotten down into the hole, and slipped under one of the support boards to get completely and utterly stuck.  You may not have understood that, but I barely do either!

How did she GET under here??

After some mental anguish, we decided we HAD to get her out.  A quail slowly dying under our deck?  No thank you!

Hubby got the drill, and we started taking out one of the boards.

Out comes the board...

She was a thirsty thing, so we were able to tempt her out with some dripping water.  Dripping water is very attractive to quails.  If you’re trying to get them used to using a rabbit/guinea pig waterer, just squeeze it until it drips.  It gets their attention right away!  And shiny things.  They will peck at shiny things.

Closer...closer...wait for it...!

Success!

For a trapped quail, she didn't seem too happy to be rescued.

So…this is one of the reasons we’re hatching some more (due date of 8/20).  We’re a little short on quails these days, thanks to the puppy.  BAD PUPPY.

We started building our raised garden beds this evening, until the drill ran out of juice.  I wanted to work on the A-frame to show you, but it looks like the raised garden beds will come first!  I bought a ton of seeds at Home Depot for our winter garden, so I’ll show you what we’ll be planting there.

DON’T MAKE MY MISTAKE: For goodness’ sake, make sure to shut your doors after you collect quail eggs!  Yes, quail can fly, but they are not very good at it.  Once they haplessly wander out of their cage, they’ll be only a hop skip and a jump away from completely helpless.  Add a cat or dog into the mix, and you’re short some quails and up some fairly useless carcasses (unless you feed your pets a raw diet.  Then they’ll still be handy).