Rabbits are a great addition to your small farm and can live happily with quite a few other farm animals.

Water

Rabbits can drink out of two main things, rabbit water bottles and buckets. Keep their water nice and clean.

Food

Rabbit food should be put in a rabbit feeder or bowl, rabbit feeders are preferable because they drain out the dust. Also give them hay.

Supplements
Leafy greens and carrots every now and then support a healthy rabbit diet. Fermented Alfalfa is important for pregnant does and after the babies are born to ensure great health.

Housing

Rabbits are happily housed with each other although unfixed male rabbits can be a bit of a problem with each other some times so to ensure safety I would introduce them while only one or less are full grown.

For giving space a general guideline is for a rabbit less than 4.4 pounds give them 1.5 square feet, 4.4 to 8.8 pounds 3.0 square feet, 8.8 to 11.9 pounds 4.0 square feet, and over 11.9 pounds 5.0 square feet. However I prefer to give them a lot more room.

Breeding

You should keep the female rabbit with a male rabbit together for no more than three weeks. If less time is desired that is okay. They usually get pregnant in the first day. I keep them together as long as possible because my pairs are always very happy together.

A rabbit pregnancy time is 31 days. Give them a 5 month break in between each time you breed a doe. Make sure you separate the doe and the buck when they have babies.

Here are some newborn lionhead-harlequin mutts (in my opinion the cutes combo):

And here a few days later…

And yet a few weeks later:

Compatibility

Rabbits can live with doves, guinea pigs, chickens, turkeys, peafowl, and quail (with quail clean the cage very often). All these combinations are great and very adorable. (I personally find putting them in the chicken coop most advantageous).

I keep mine with the goats and alpaca too and that gives them a huge amount of space. You just have to make sure the fence is safe.

I hope you have enjoyed this post and the pictures of all my different rabbits! To see more on rabbits, specifically on their various breeds, check out Which Rabbit is for You.

Doves are beautiful and awesome pets, they can be easily tamed and will sit often on your arm or shoulder. Turns out care is quite simple!

Water

Doves usually can use any type of waterer as long as they can reach into it. I like to use chicken waterers for my sizeable flock but for just a pair or a single dove a chick waterer works quite nicely.

If you keep them inside, a parrot situation should suit a pair.

Food

You can buy dove seed at pet stores, but finch seed is easier to find and is pretty much the same so I just use it. In fact, I have found that wild bird seed (not the sunflower kind) is quite similar as well.

Supplements

No grit needed. However you should give them salt blocks or cuttlefish bone.

Housing

Doves can live in small areas needing only a 3′ x 3′ x 3′ cage for a pair. They do best with at least one other dove but you can keep lots of them together, like I do.

Currently my doves live in a ~10x23x6 where I keep 7 in addition to a pair of pheasants, and a pair of rabbits.

Breeding

Doves choose one mate for life so you want to know that if you have one male only one female will probably have fertile eggs. However, I do currently own a polygamous ring necked dove.

The unfertile females will lay four eggs, but the fertile ones only two. Why that is? Don’t ask me, but it helps keep track of things.

You should let them take care of their chicks and not incubate the eggs.

The eggs can’t hatch once exposed to water so try to give them lots of rain cover over and beside their nest. It took us a very long time to get our first chick due to the fact we did not know this.

Doves also breed very quickly so take in mind that once you get a male and a female once they have the first chick they’ll never stop having chicks.

I’ve never had trouble selling mine. They usually sell within a day of them being posted (on various websites).

Here is Michael my first chick (all my doves are named after angels).

Compatibility

Doves can live with pheasants, quail, chickens (Give them some places in the cage that the chickens can’t go in just in case), and pigeons (Give lots of space). Not water fowl due to the water diseases. Turkeys, guineas, and peafowl can be aggressive.

Rabbits are also great to put at the bottom of a dove aviary.

Chickens are probably the most common type of poultry. These animals are good egg layers and easy to maintain. This article applies to our staple chicken and you must realize special care may be required for exotic breeds like onagadori and featherless.

Water 

Chickens have been documented doing some pretty… er… stupid things, so don’t give them anything that they can drown in. Other than that they can use any type of waterer.

Food 

A chicken can use any kind of feeder, but they will try to scratch at it so on that only their head can go into is best. The amount of food varies a lot with chickens so just try what seems best for yours. Generally a food supply should be constant.

Supplements

Chick grit for four through seven weeks and then graduate to normal poultry grit. Sprinkling diatomaceous earth on food once a month will be good too, so as to keep out parasites.

Housing

Chickens should be housed with other chickens. The coop should be four times the size of the chicken and add that with each new chicken. Rooster can live together but must have lots of space, at least eight square feet per rooster where normally it would be four, have 10-12 or 0 hens each, and be raised together.

Even then keep in mind some just won’t get a long no matter what you do. So if the conditions above are not met then the roosters should be separated within their first three months. If the time for separation comes and the gender is not clear you can tell with these methods. 

Breeding

Some times a hen will incubate her eggs. If you only have one nesting box for all your chickens and a hen does go broody, you might start to find the other hens’ eggs scattered in random places, if this is the case you probably want to separate the broody hen or take away her eggs if you don’t want her to hatch them.

Chickens will rarely go broody more than once a year though so to be very successful you should incubate them. The eggs should be kept at 99.5 degrees F (37.5 C) and should be turned 2-3 times a day.

After 18 days lock down and hatch on day 21.

Compatibility

Chickens can live with Guinea hens, doves, Goats, and pigeons. Chickens could and would eat dove and pigeon eggs, so I would keep them in a tall cage with room where the chickens can’t go.

They can also live with ducks and geese when in a larger run/free range so there’s lots of non- muddy area. Peafowl, quail, pheasants, and turkeys will be given black head or coryza.

However, special exception can be made for chicks raised in an incubator with no exposure whatsoever to chicken dung from other chickens. Then these chickens may be kept with the above mentioned species.

However quail are prone to be picked on.

So, however you choose to incubate, brood, and keep your chickens, please keep in mind this care guide. Buen suerte!

In the picture above it is easy to tell the gender of each chicken, but for a young pullet or cockerel you may not be able to tell so easily.

No one wants two young roosters together in a small cage. And you may live in in a non-rooster-friendly neighborhood, you don’t want to figure out which is which by the first crow.

Let’s look at some methods that work for any chicken from a very young age.

Feather shape

The easiest way to determine the gender of a young chicken is by taking a look at the feathers on the bird’s neck. A female chicken has rounded feathers, and a male has pointed feathers.

Take a sturdy piece of thin plastic like a credit card and place it under a row of the chicken’s feathers at the back of the neck. If the feathers have pointed ends, the bird is most likely male. If the feathers are more rounded, the bird is probably female.

Combs and Wattles

A young female chicken will have a smaller comb on top of its head and a smaller wattle underneath its beak. A young male chicken will have a larger comb and wattle. The male’s comb will stand upright, while a female’s comb will usually flop over to the side.

This test isn’t always right until the chicken is almost an adult, because both young male and female chickens have similarly sized combs and wattles. This test is only accurate in single-comb breeds.

Spurs

The spur is the toe-like growth at the back of a chicken’s leg. It curves upward. Males have larger spurs. Find the spur and compare it to a known male or female of approximately the same age, or compare several birds of the same age, and the larger spurred ones are likely male.

If you have any questions feel free to ask them in the Forum Section

My first post here on this blog will be about quail and their basic needs.

I am known among my family for being obsessed with quail so be prepared for a lot of future quail blog posts.

This post does not apply to the miniature button quail (here is a link to my article about them).

Water

Quail can get anything dirty, so when watering them you need the right kind of waterer. Here are the kinds I suggest:

Anything, however, works as long as they can’t crawl into it. Always make sure that there is water in it. If it’s getting dirty then just dump out the dirty water (I dump it in my garden) and refill it with cleaner water. They should always have clean water. If it starts to grow algae or mold then dump out the water and clean the waterer (just with a paper towel or a rag, not a cleaning solution).

Food

Game bird or quail food would be the best, but chicken food can work.

Make sure they have food at all times, and it’s not more than a week old

Grind their food (in a coffee grinder or blender, just normal kitchen stuff) prior to four weeks of age, or give gamebird starter.

Supplements

Give them chick grit staring at 6 weeks (I usually just sprinkle a hand full of chick grit and a half hand full of oyster shell per day).

Diatomaceous earth can be sprinkled on the food about once a month to stop any possible parasites.

Housing

Quails should never be housed alone for more than a month (which should only take place when they are sick) being very social animals. Roosters can live together if they were raised together but if you start running into problems (I never have) separate them.

One square foot of space should be provided for a pair and add a half a square foot for each added individual afterward. I however keep them in a large area. The ‘add half a square foot rule’ is just the minimum.

Breeding

When breeding your quail, make sure the quail you’re breeding aren’t siblings. If they’re not, you can breed them. It’s very rare for a quail to incubate its own eggs in captivity. If they do try they’re seldom successful. I have had one go broody but it did not go very well.

Generally, if you’re going to let them brood, separate them from the flock, unless they are monogamous species like Montezuma, Mountain, Gamble’s (sometimes), or California (also sometimes), to name a few.

[For the record the most commonly kept quail: the Bobwhite and Coturnix are polygamous by nature.]

Find a good incubator that says it can incubate quail eggs and set it at a temperature of 100 degrees F (37.8 C) in an incubator with a circulation fan and 102 degrees F (38.9 C) with a still air incubator. Turn eggs thrice a day. I’d check for specific days a week on a different website, until that post’s made.

Then, they can move into a brooder.

Compatibility

Quail can live with pheasants, pigeons, and doves (with pigeons and doves make sure you have a tall pen with perches). All the animals listed above can live together too but pigeons and doves can have some complications. If you want more info ask in the comment section below or read the Dove Post.

No more animals should be housed with quail. Turkeys carry certain diseases, peacocks are too aggressive, chickens and guineas tend to carry Blackhead, and ducks and geese can start up diseases with their messy water.

For more on quail check out my post: Which Quail do You Want