The Quail Lady, Alexandra Doss

Alex has had quail forever! Her and all her feathered friends live in Florida and operate Stellar Gamebirds. Meet Alex here and find out about her new book on incubating.

• Transcript

  Jennifer: 0:02

  Hey, poultry nerds. We're here today with you go by Alex or Alexandra.

  Alexandria: 0:07

  I go by either. So whichever you

  Jennifer: 0:10

  can call me. Alexandra

  Alexandria: 0:10

  today.

  Jennifer: 0:11

  Can we just say, Hey, you down there. You

  Carey: 0:15

  can call me Alexandria today.

  Jennifer: 0:18

  We're going to use the whole name.

  Carey: 0:20

  Heck yeah. We'll use all of it.

  Jennifer: 0:22

  We'll say Mrs. Doss and stellar game birds dot net. Correct.

  Carey: 0:29

  Mrs. Doss is Stellar Game Birds

  Jennifer: 0:34

  down in Florida, and she's with us today to tell us all about her farm, her new book that just came out, and just chit chat nerdy style. So welcome, Alex.

  Alexandria: 0:50

  Yeah, I always think I'm in trouble. If someone's calling me Alexandra, when you're in college, they call you Alexandra. If you fall asleep, they call you your full name or my yeah, it just it's definitely a. A pleasure to be here today. I do go by Alex or Alexandra, whichever. You want to call me? It's not a huge deal. I call me whatever they want to call me or the quail lady. I've been farming for quite some time now. I started farming in 2009 where I started Stellar Game Birds, Poultry, Waterfall, LLC. Beforehand I was in Oregon in college from 2005 to 2009, it's been 20 years now. Oh, goodness. Are you from Oregon? I am not. I'm actually from Chicago, Illinois. I hang

  Carey: 1:44

  on pause.

  Alexandria: 1:45

  Yeah.

  Carey: 1:45

  Where are you now?

  Alexandria: 1:47

  I'm in Florida.

  Carey: 1:49

  So you went from Chicago, Oregon to Florida. Okay.

  Jennifer: 1:58

  Why not?

  Carey: 1:59

  Yeah. Why not?

  Jennifer: 2:01

  You go to Oregon for college now, I've read your first book a while back, so tell us about college.

  Alexandria: 2:07

  Yep. I I went to Oregon state university in 2005, in which I majored in animal sciences and pre vet the pre vet option. I added poultry option later down the road. Since at that time, poultry was, the poultry department was super, super small. I'm talking about six people interested in poultry. But I I went in for a pre vet to be a veterinarian and I fell in love with the animal husbandry farming aspect to it. The medicine part just didn't. Really fit well. But I finished my degree with both of the minors and animal sciences degree. In 20 2009. I keep wanting to say 2029 for some reason because it's been so long ago, but we're not going into the future now. So I during my time in college I got my first quail during avian embryology. His name was Stella and I basically knew nothing about coil at that time. I just, he was cute. They we hatched out a bunch of chicks and my professor's oh, you can have this. You can sneak it in your apartment. No big whoop. So I put them in my sweatshirt pocket. And almost killed him that day because I forgot he was in my sweatshirt. I put my cell phone in there and at that time you have those bulky cell phones. So it squished him for a while. Ran, ran into the vet school because I do work there. And I showed it to my co worker and she's are you sure he's alive? He was limp there and she's what are you going to do with a quail? I'm like I've raised parrots before. I don't think it's that hard. So I went to Petco. I got, the fish tank, the reptile heat the heat lamp and. shavings or I think it was yeah, shavings. And brought him into the apartment and I raised him and I thought it was a girl until it did his first crow. So it ended up being a boy. I kept the name Stella. I'm a major fan of Gilmore girls. And so there's a scene in which she loses the chick and they called it Stella and they go screaming Stella in the room. And so that's how the bird got its name. And he's a boy, but that's okay. So he was my foundation foundation quail, and I wanted to get him a buddy. My friend who was also in the avian embryology class got a chick. She got a female. And so she actually ended up calling the male that she had because it got too aggressive. So she gave me the female in which she became Tara. And so we had Stella and Tara, and that's how I started my small little breeding program. in my two bedroom apartment. And the story just continues on and on. I wanted all the quail, you end up being hyper, hyper fixated and you want to raise more quail and you want to hatch more eggs. However, in the small two bedroom apartment, you can't really buy 50 to 100 eggs at a time. I bought the incubator. I was learning how to incubate eggs from my own and I contacted Stromberg Hatchery because at that time I looked up a hatchery and I contacted Stromberg in which they said, Oh, hey, we have somebody who's willing to work with you to get a small number. And so that's how I got some other colors. I got English white, I got Italian, I got red range and I got addicted since. So I took that little group, graduated college and moved back home to Chicago. And my parents sold the house and said, Hey, we're moving to Florida. We bought five acres in Florida. So I didn't have a job at that time. So I packed up the birds and I moved with them. And so I started farming on the five acres and then later down the road after. Meeting my husband, moved down to Ruskin in a Tampa Bay area. And now I have my own farm here. But I don't just raise quail anymore. My quail population grew. I studied quail in college in avian embryology and I did genetics in there. And I brought all of the knowledge that I have with the birds that I have that I brought over to Fort Myers, and then now here in Tampa Bay, and I just, I grew the lines. I made friends and connections with other quail breeders and farmers. I worked with them on certain traits. I brought in varieties. I have many varieties here and I continue to work with them. Unfortunately, a lot of my mentors and quail quail folks are no longer with us. But with the quail and the lines. They, they stay in there. But besides quail, I now, because I wanted to do diversified farm with regenerative agriculture and self sustainability, I have all sorts of animals. I wanted that traditional lassie where you have everything in their pens. We have Gloucestershire old spot pigs. We got dairy goats. We got some mini cows. I got emus and some other exotic birds, pheasants, peacocks. I also raised the chickens different kinds of chickens. A lot of our animals are from the livestock conservancy, as we do want to work on heritage animals. They're very good self sufficiency breeds and other animals. And. I just continue on doing that. I want survival of the fittest. I want strong, resilient animals. And that's what I strive with the genetics that I know of selective breeding, and I just, I can basically take an animal, learn from it and try to succeed with it. And then help other farms along the way. So that's a little bit about me. I know there's much more I have written about myself so many times. So when I put on the spot, I don't remember half of the stuff I do nobody does. It's okay.

  Carey: 7:46

  No, but the cool thing is you were talking about how you breathe for resiliency and that sort of stuff. That to me, that's what a homesteader should be concerned about, cause nobody look, not everybody went to vet school. Okay. Two of y'all in your vet school. Yeah, I'm just a guy from Alabama. I don't know a lot of that stuff. So I want an animal that I can hatch out, put it out, let it grow, let it do its thing. To me, Yeah. Breeding for that and having people that do know that you can trust. Is important for homesteader to where they can get good stock that they know that as soon as they put it on the ground, it's not going to get sick and die.

  Alexandria: 8:35

  That's correct. And we did on our website. We do have higher price points and the reason why is that they are. We do produce quality. And it's very important for people to know that you have quality. It's not going to be a hatchery bird in which you do put it on the ground and in two weeks it dies, and then they want to blame you for it. It's these birds have been through a lot. We have birds that have been through three or four hurricanes and then they just had a direct hit and they still made it, we, people want to have, they, when they put in. When they put in their purchase, they want to have something that lives a long time. I'm hoping that people want something that lives a long time. And so that's why, I do have a higher price point in my products, but I do also offer mentorship and they never get rid of me. A year later, I'll contact something, but somebody and be like, Hey, how are these birds? And they'll be like, Oh, something happened. The Fox got them. I'm like why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you? Why didn't you communicate to me? And they're like because if I, told the breeder or hatchery, they won't do anything. And I'm like why don't you come to the farm and let's see what we can do to get your flock going again. And they just, they really appreciate that support. And so they're purchasing my mentorship. They're purchasing my support that I actually care. I'm an ethical breeder and I only do pre orders because. I want to make sure that they are committed to these animals. I don't want to just, give a bunch of people throw away birds or pigs or dogs at that. I really work hard. I will hold on to goat kids until they're at weaning. If they're not feeling comfortable for bottle feeding, I don't want these animals to die. I want them to live on and I want people to appreciate and understand. The quality and the resilience that these animals can bring for their betterment too.

  Jennifer: 10:31

  You were just telling me when we were talking the other day, because you just got back from a transport route that aren't you U. S. D. A. certified to transport across state lines. How does that work?

  Alexandria: 10:43

  Yes, we have a we have a permit. We have a permit that is through USDA. It is, I believe it's for, it's animal ethicality or animal welfare. It's under the Animal Welfare Act. My apologies and we are allowed to transport animals across state lines. They still need to have their vet slips. They need, they all, they have to always, they have to be health checked and they have to be safely, okay. The permits within each state, but we do USDA transport so that we can bring our animals from point A to point B, but we can also help other animal farmers along the way with transporting their animals because not everything can be shipped and I don't know about you all. But U. S. P. S. is not very reliable on chicks and birds, and I really don't want to put something that is so valuable into the post. So I would rather hand deliver them

  Carey: 11:37

  and, I'm glad they finally started mending that today. They started turning away people, bringing them chicks. Because they know the weather is going to be bad and they can't handle it.

  Alexandria: 11:49

  It doesn't give, if you're starting out with birds and you get a box of dead animals it's not really, a positive feeling, especially if you're not. If you're not used to culling, if you're not used to the, the, I guess you would say the bad side to homesteading, you know what you have, so I do. I did see that and I was very happy to see that they're turning people away. It will also show patients. Hopefully it shows more patience and people are more understanding because animals are not, a product that you just get at Walmart. I call it the now generation. I want it now. The Amazon people same day delivery,

  Carey: 12:27

  so

  Alexandria: 12:28

  hopefully this shine some light to some people that, hey, these are live. Live critters to, you were

  Jennifer: 12:34

  talking about that. I just got an email notification across my screen from an angry customer who hasn't got her perch yet. They only grow as fast as they grow, we can only, we only have room for so many birds. Definitely

  Alexandria: 12:50

  that's

  Jennifer: 12:52

  not just me. That's you that's. Even the big hatcheries, we only have enough room for so many birds. So if you've ordered birds, just be patient because I'm actually iced in today and can't do anything.

  Carey: 13:04

  So I don't understand that. Like people will place an order. And then, I've had it happen the other day, somebody called, they placed an order at 2 o'clock in the morning. Don't take a notion to call the people at 2 o'clock in the morning and be like, hey, I just placed an order, because that's that's not going to get you any favors when it comes time to ship it.

  Jennifer: 13:32

  We'll just leave that one because. Yeah, we do the best we can is what I hope what we can do. And you don't know everything that's going on behind the scenes. So

  Alexandria: 13:42

  definitely 1 of the services that I do, because not very many people can have roosters in the area. For the past 3 years, I, instead of straight run, because for, I want to say, 10 plus years, it was just straight run. It is what it is. If you pay for it, right? You get what you pay for. I am offering four to eight week old pullets and should any become a rooster, they can bring back and either trade for a pullet or I can process it for them. That's the newest thing that I can process a rooster for you, but because they're guaranteed pullets, I tried I, I tried to make the best I can because some. Times they will look like a pull it until they're eight months. And then all of a sudden cockaroo to do. I've been offering the four to eight weeks, sometimes a little bit, like we know that olive acres and some other breeds are, they show their gender a little bit later, but I do offer them the guaranteed pull it so that they can start out right with the animal that they need. Without having to return or saturate the market with roosters. So I try really hard to give them that specific service. And it's usually the best seller because people want hens. And so the only way to get a hand is to get a pull it now. They won't lay tomorrow. You're still going to have to wait for them to lay, but it still allows them and gives them a peace of mind to get that female bird. And we do that. We do the service with quail, even though the quail cocks don't really make a huge racket. People still think that. They're like a rooster that they'll make that loud now, loud noise. So I offer that service and it's my kind of service to the community to help them get what they need without, without having to keep returning roosters, but things happen, roosters come back and you can, everyone's human, you make mistakes. Exactly.

  Carey: 15:38

  Yeah.

  Alexandria: 15:39

  So tell us about your new book that you have. Oh, yes. I recently I recently published an ebook, but it's now a hard cover on Amazon since so many people wanted to print it out and it's all in color and fancy and not everybody has a printer. So I did end up having to do a hard cover, but I did write an incubation book. Yeah. for modern incubation techniques. And that has been, I think, out since December. It can be purchased online or Amazon now. And it's a, it's basically all of the experiences that I've had as well as troubleshooting, learning from others. Basically a guide to help you with incubating. We're you know, we're at this age and time where people want to buy more live birds because they don't have faith in breeders for hatching eggs. And this way they can purchase those cheaper, hatching eggs and have success for incubation. So this was a recent, this was just an idea I have. I know there's tons of books out there on incubation and stuff, but I just wanted to put my two cents in there to help people And it also has if you get the e book now, the downside for the Amazon is that you can't download on Amazon, all of the fun trackers. But if you get the e book, you also get hatching trackers and incubator checklist and in addition as downloadables for the price of, the whole e book price. But for Amazon, you don't get those extra downloadables, but you get a hard copy that you don't need to print out. So you're welcome to go back to the website to get those downloadables and print those out because that's I want to say maybe six pages versus 80 pages of an ebook. So those I wanted to give some options out, if you're in the incubator in your egg room or incubator house and everything. Sometimes you don't want to have your computer with all the dust and everything. You just bring out the book, see where you're at. And the good thing about the book and the it talks about, what to do in power outages and hurricanes. And yes, that was a chapter that I wrote by hand because I was out for two weeks for power outage when the hurricane hit but it is also there's areas of species specific because when you get an incubator, you have to set things up for. Specifically different species. We have quail. We have emu peacocks. Everybody has different needs. And so there are sections for each of those species. And what's also really awesome about this book is that I. I I took out, I took all of the different incubator companies because there's so many incubator companies including the off brands, of course, on Amazon. But we have the we have hatching time. We have the Dickies incubator GQF. I basically show the pro and cons of each of the incubators. The different models because you may not want a cabinet, you may just want a tabletop and where to purchase it. So that was another section that I put in the book so that it's basically an all in one guide to help you succeed in your incubation journey and has a little bit of story from me, of course. And my, some of my flaws and stuff, because we're human. And I want to share the transparency to that. I didn't just get an incubator and had full success. What kind of

  Jennifer: 19:08

  incubator do you use?

  Alexandria: 19:10

  I use Dickies and GQFs. I also have a Brenzea. I want to try the hatching time. I just haven't got into it yet. Might be one of the trials that I do this year. I'm all for if it's not broken, don't fix it. And so I've had these incubator, these cabinet incubators on and up running for Literally 24 seven. The only time they were off is when we lost power for, from the hurricane. So the only things I need to do is change the fans once in a while and the heating elements, which I do in the winter time when it's slower anyways. So they've been really amazing incubators. I really did not, I don't have any concerns with them for me. It's a set it and forget it because I'm so used to. incubating. I love the Brinsea. It's easy to clean. It's my only tabletop right now. I'm full on all the cabinets, so I had to fill, I had to turn on the Brinsea. And so I use that. I also have an older incubator, but it's it's not in service right now. It's a Buckeye incubator, so it's like one of those walk in incubators. It just needs a Some parts replaced. It's it was a ostrich incubator at one time and you can basically fill it up with thousands of eggs. It's awesome, but I have, it's out of service right now. Hopefully I can get it running. It's pricey to keep it up and running and with all of the inflation and Increase in prices. It's more cost effective for me to keep the other captive incubators running. I believe at the time when I had it on the Buckeye would cost an extra a hundred dollars a month. It really was pumping, but it was connected to the water. So every time it was overheating, it would spray water in there to cool it down. It kept everything to the 10th of the degree. It was an awesome incubator. So we just got to fix it up. Like any other machinery, and it should be back up and running whenever I want it up and running again.

  Jennifer: 21:08

  I can't imagine having an incubator that you can walk into.

  Alexandria: 21:13

  It's pretty cool in all honesty. I,

  Carey: 21:15

  that would be awesome. I

  Alexandria: 21:17

  had it running for a long time. We did take it down when we were building the house because obviously the room that it was in was. Getting demolished. That was the, that was a sad moment to turn off an incubator in all honesty, but it's a cool, it's a cool incubator. But yeah, I just have my cabinets right now running. We have emus in one, we got quail and most of them and the chicken started producing for the spring orders a couple of days ago. So we're pretty full right now.

  Jennifer: 21:45

  Yep, yep, I am too. Smashing them in the top and the bottom. I'm post tucking them in there everywhere I can, honestly. I got eggs everywhere. I just have to know how old is that little tiny emu that you have posted? That

  Alexandria: 22:05

  emu is 3 weeks old right now. He may seem little, but he was so much little before. I vent sexed him and he's a male. He's super cute, super sweet. Just need to make room because we have more emus hatching. And he was the last one The last one standing there, everybody else went to homes. And so I wanted to give him a home, but he might stay, he might get a name and he might stay, emus live up to 30 years plus. How

  Jennifer: 22:30

  long does it take for them to mature?

  Alexandria: 22:33

  About two years. They can lay at 18 months about, but usually two years for them to mature.

  Carey: 22:40

  I want it.

  Alexandria: 22:42

  They're fun.

  Carey: 22:43

  It looks like a Pharaoh.

  Alexandria: 22:46

  It does, but they do grow up and they do change colors.

  Carey: 22:49

  So do kids, but I have a lot of those.

  Jennifer: 22:52

  Okay so what is a whole bunch of emu together? A mob. I would just love to tell David I'm going outside to take care of my mob.

  Alexandria: 23:05

  Man, a group of Guinea foul is called a confusion. Doesn't that work with their personality?

  Jennifer: 23:14

  It makes sense. I did not know that though.

  Carey: 23:16

  I did not either.

  Jennifer: 23:17

  I know it's a murder of crows,

  Carey: 23:19

  which I'll say this. It wasn't until the last couple months that I learned the term quails. Was proper because I thought quail was plural, like deer, but. No. They

  Jennifer: 23:35

  were.

  Carey: 23:36

  Quails. Quails is actually the proper way to refer to them in plural.

  Alexandria: 23:43

  I think it still can go both ways last I checked. I honestly, I cannot do quails. I can't do quails. It's like fish and fish. It's a fish. Yeah, it's a fish. So on I, if it's the, if it's the proper name, that is okay. But I did see that it still can be referred to quail as plural. In my very first book, I would have which was Coturnix Revolution was published in 2013. That one, and Cat's trying to get on this video here that book I would have what the proper terms was in the beginning of each chapter, and there is one that says the plural form of quail is quail.

  Jennifer: 24:27

  I wonder if it's a modern dictionary that has changed it to quails, because I thought it was the same thing.

  Carey: 24:33

  I'll go with that. I think it's modern because. I like quail being quail with your, cause like when I tell my wife, Hey, I'm going to go take some quail out of the incubator and I pull 600 of them out. She just thinks quail. Yeah, she doesn't. She doesn't realize there's 600 of them, or if it's, a trade that's got 90 in it. It sounds better, right?

  Alexandria: 24:59

  I think it sounds much better, but There will be a time and there'll be a day where quail disappears and every, the proper form is just quails. They'll probably make me twitch a little bit in all honesty, but I will continue. I will continually call them quail. As plural.

  Jennifer: 25:16

  You have geese too, don't you?

  Alexandria: 25:18

  I do. I have heritage geese. We have pomeranians Chinese brown Chinese and cotton patch. I have three lines of cotton patch.

  Jennifer: 25:28

  Okay. Is it a flock of geese?

  Alexandria: 25:31

  It's a gaggle. Gaggle? Gaggle of geese. Gaggle of geese. Yep. And you have guineas? I have guineas. The other I call them my feral children. They they are just free range around the property. I do have groups penned up right now. Because I wanted to keep them penned. It's it is the season of predators. So I wanted to make sure I keep them penned so they don't fly into the woods. But other than that, after they get to a certain age, I let them loose and. They have fun and they lay in the woods and it's like an Easter egg hunt and everything do is your guineas

  Jennifer: 26:10

  Cuz let's just let me just tell you or tell everybody so I've had guineas twice and guineas are like boats You're really excited the day you get them and you're super excited the day you get rid of them. And so And then one would stay in the yard, and then they would all run back and forth along the fence trying to figure out how to get in to go to bed. And you would have to go and scoop them up, if you could catch them, and throw them back over the fence. Because they forgot that they were birds and could fly back over. Are yours smarter than mine?

  Alexandria: 26:43

  Mine will wait at the gate to be let in. We don't, I don't have issues right now with them leaving the property. We used to have some open land across the street. TECO purchased it, the electric company. And so now it's a solar farm. So they put this big giant chain link fence. To block it, right? To fence in that land. So the guineas used to go across the street to lay eggs. And so one day they tried to get across the street and they kept hitting the fence and they didn't understand why they couldn't get into that land. And they stopped really trying to wander. There are times when they leave in the property and I have seen that. People calling me saying, Hey, I think your bird is out. I think, Oh my goodness, you have 10 babies with this mama. And I'm like, Oh my goodness, there, that's where she went. So I tell them that she's going, they're going to come back. They're going to come back. They're going to wait at the gate. And surely enough that evening, they wait at the gate and you let them in and they act like they're, tourists and they tour the property and everything. And it's all good. So I, they're just. They're just not bright when they leave that fence. It's they know how to cross, but they can't come back

  Jennifer: 28:01

  and they play in the road and get run over.

  Alexandria: 28:04

  They do. Mine have been pretty good. I actually think that they've been helping the community a little bit to stop speeding on our road.

  Carey: 28:14

  Hey, whatever it takes.

  Jennifer: 28:16

  So I had my, I had dwindled mine down to, I think I had a flock of. And I had pinned them up so I could collect their eggs. To hatch them. And it was, they were in the pen on the far side of the barn. And it was Christmas morning, I don't know, maybe four years ago, three years ago. And it was like 80 degrees that morning. And so David says, let's have breakfast on the deck. So outside we go. And we could not hear each other talking for the guinea screaming. And I kid you not. What is that, Kerry? Maybe 200 feet from my deck to the far side of the barn?

  Carey: 29:00

  Probably.

  Jennifer: 29:01

  Yeah, and then the sound would have had to come around the barn towards the house. And so I sold the guineas to make him happy. But yes, that was the second time I've sold all my guineas.

  Alexandria: 29:16

  Yeah, it's one of those love and hate birds. For years I would get, I would just have seven or eight. And some of them would die off from old age. We had a blind one for some reason. And I was surprised that thing lived for seven, eight years. But hey, we figured it out. But they would disappear in the woods and then I eventually just sold them off. And then one day they, I guess they just hatched really well and I ended up with 70, 70 to 80. And so that was my free range flock for a while and then dwindled down a little bit. And I think we're at 40 right now. And then 40, including the ones that I'm growing out and that's going to be the next generation. I like them because they eat the ticks and I haven't seen a tick on a single goat, a single dog, a cow, none of the livestock. They just, so I know that they're doing their job. I don't have to feed them. They're like pigeons. They eat whatever scraps they can find and then they go into the woods and then they come out with 40 or 50 babies one day and then I have to get a fishing net and I have to catch them and it's a whole circle of life. I can't imagine

  Jennifer: 30:21

  having that many guineas. That's a lot of noise.

  Carey: 30:24

  You wouldn't need it. You wouldn't need an LGD if you had that many guineas.

  Jennifer: 30:29

  Reads those to you.

  Carey: 30:31

  All that racket,

  Alexandria: 30:33

  Surprisingly, they're not that loud. When I have over or some personnel, they don't even notice that the geese are there, I feed everybody. They're content. They're happy. It's all about space. And if they're, happy obviously, if something annoys them if they see a turkey vulture or something, then they will go after it. But other. Otherwise, after I feed him water, everything is just quiet. It's like I don't have animals. It's weird. The geese too. I had a friend, I have geese all down the driveway and different pens. Because it's I want to keep it away from the waters, of course. And I want to keep, I want to keep them in their own area. And I had somebody drive up the driveway and they didn't even know I had any geese. They're just quiet. So maybe I have just well trained animals at this point. Now the dogs will bark all night if they want to, but otherwise, once I feed the birds they're pretty quiet. Unless that's just, I don't hear them anymore because I'm used to it. Who knows?

  Jennifer: 31:40

  One of these days I'm going to have to come visit so I can see all these animals. What kind of cows do you have? I

  Alexandria: 31:46

  have many jerseys. Do you milk them? Not right now. We did have one that we met. We were able to milk, but right now we're just trying to get them bred again.

  Jennifer: 31:56

  Yeah. Yeah. I have a jersey, but she's not a mini.

  Alexandria: 32:01

  I don't have a lot of land. I have close to 6 acres. And so a lot of my livestock are meant for that smaller homestead. So we have I have dairy goats. I raised many La Manchas. I've been working on them. I guess I think for nine or 10 years and I have the mini cattle for milk too. And I do, most of my chickens are large pout chickens. And I do raise large pigs, but other than that, everything that I have is. good for the homestead. They don't tear it up. You got your hands full. We have, I have a bunch of kids right now. I'm bottle feeding them three to four times a day because I pull them and I milk the I milk the goats too. Yep, definitely it's spring, even if it's February. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, it's crazy.

  Jennifer: 32:53

  And I just have to say she works full time too.

  Alexandria: 32:56

  I do, yep. It's up, it's time management. I have mastered time management at this point. I'm able to do a full time job and farm. I wouldn't say farm full time, but it is a full time job too. Yes, yeah, it is.

  Jennifer: 33:12

  Thank you for coming on today. Tell everybody where they can find you all of your handles and addresses and all that good stuff.

  Alexandria: 33:21

  You can on Facebook you can look me up at Stellar Gamebirds. I almost forgot my name here. Stellar Gamebirds Poultry Waterfowl. It's been a day. Waterfowl LLC. Also, www. stellargamebirds. net, which is the main hub. We have two storefronts, one for the animals and then one for our locals for meat and eggs because we also raise pasture raised animals for food and then I have my blog, you can, it directs to my blog, which is our educational site basically talking about. Every single topic animal concern and personal stuff. And but other than that basically, if you look up stellar game birds, it usually will get to get over to me

  Jennifer: 34:10

  is stellar become from Stella your 1st quail.

  Alexandria: 34:14

  That is correct. Yep. I also like stars and so wanted to have something of a constellation. So yep, stellar game birds because of Stella and how stellar he was. And he lived

  Jennifer: 34:28

  to be like nine years old, right?

  Alexandria: 34:30

  He did. I believe it was nine years old. I lose track of time as time goes by, but yeah he was pretty long. Long living bird. Most of my quail tend to live up to seven, eight years from the lines that I work on. Because I do also, I do give them breaks during the wintertime and during their molting as well. I want resilience and I want them to live long lives so I can continue the lines a little bit more. But of course, I have to cull. You have to cull heavily when you're selectively breeding too not all of them make that cut, but the good breeders that I want to work with they tend to live long lives, and all the other species that I raise too tend to live long lives, like the button quail.

  Jennifer: 35:10

  Oh, yeah,

  Alexandria: 35:11

  we

  Jennifer: 35:11

  forgot button quails. You have the itty bitty ones and the ginormous ones. All you need now is ostriches.

  Alexandria: 35:18

  My husband said no. Yeah, no, it's been a conversation. I have emus and that's the biggest bird that I will probably have here. While I live on this property, that is, although I do have fencing for ostriches. I'm not allowed to have an ostrich. Sometimes we have to make concessions

  Jennifer: 35:38

  to keep the peace.

  Carey: 35:42

  That's a thing.

  Jennifer: 35:42

  Yeah. Yeah, we do have a lot going on. Alrighty.

  Carey: 35:47

  My wife, she gets really nervous when like a Rhode Island Red or a Jersey Giant comes and greets her at the car. I don't want to know how much trouble I would get into if an EMU. That was like 5 foot tall came to the car

  Alexandria: 36:03

  because

  Carey: 36:03

  I couldn't hide it at that point.

  Alexandria: 36:06

  What's funny when we had the hurricane, we had to have the linemen come to fix our power pole. And I have quite a bit of livestock guardian dogs. I breed them and I'm also training Four puppies right now older puppies and they were not concerned about the dogs. They were concerned about this weird, we call him weird owl because he's super weird, the speckled Sussex extra rooster that was walking around following them. They were more concerned of him than the dogs that were barking at them.

  Carey: 36:39

  Yeah, I've gotten phone calls from Amazon drivers about chicken. I'm like, I'm not home. It says. It's not gonna hurt you.

  Alexandria: 36:52

  Yeah, what is it doing? It's, it was just funny. It's like you have a bunch of dogs that you would They're big dogs, don't get me wrong. And they're afraid of this chicken.

  Carey: 37:02

  That is funny.

  Alexandria: 37:03

  And that rooster is harmless. He just He's curious about the world. He just follows you around and then he wonders what you're doing. He's just a weird rooster. He's not a typical rooster at all.

  Jennifer: 37:15

  I have about Probably eight at this point just walking around outside at the barn Free ranging and I have a leak in the barn roof And I had a guy come out to put a piece of metal on it He wouldn't get out of his truck. I mean because my roosters are not small And he was like, not getting out, so I had to park the sea of Orpingtons so he could get to the barn. There

  Alexandria: 37:42

  must be a bunch of evil rooster, evil chicken TikToks out there that just terrifies them. But I just, I'm still laughing at the fact that the dogs were right there. I think there was like six dogs. Six dogs barking at them, and they were worried about one bird. Yeah. Yeah. I

  Carey: 38:00

  mean, it's they're afraid it's gonna find out that they had their cousin for dinner last night or something, I don't know.

  Alexandria: 38:06

  But yeah, no, it's people are interesting. That's for sure.

  Jennifer: 38:09

  Yep. All right. It's been great having you on today.

  Alexandria: 38:13

  So we're going to wrap it up. Definitely. Thank you for having me. And once again, if you need to find me www.stellargamebirds.Net, or just look up stellar game birds, I'm pretty much everywhere, even on Google. There you go.

  Carey: 38:28

  Mhm.