Dennis Fox’s Weblog

The late-night TV comics are having a great time joking about Dick Cheney shooting his fellow hunter instead of a quail, and I can’t say I blame them. Anything making the Veep look foolish can only be good news, except of course for the guy he shot in the face.

Jon Stewart’s Daily Show claimed Cheney’s quail was caged until shortly before release and disoriented when Cheney took aim. I don’t know if that’s the case, but it sounds plausible. I do know some so-called “hunts” amount to open slaughter of birds and other animals bred specifically for the purpose. It can get pretty gruesome.

I first found about live pigeon shoots and similar atrocities in the early 1990s. That’s when my wife, a criminal defense lawyer, represented Steve Hindi, head of an Illinois animal rights group that documents and interferes with pigeon shoots and other kinds of animal mistreatment. The charges against him were thrown out of court when my wife pointed out he hadn’t actually broken any laws, though I just read online that a few years later he spent six months in jail.

At any rate, if the quail Cheney didn’t manage to kill was indeed raised for slaughter, this is probably what its short life was like:

Bobwhite Quail Production and Management Guide:

At six weeks of age, chicks are typically moved from the brooding facility into outside flight pens until 17 weeks of age, and then birds are marketed to hunting plantations. The density of birds placed in a flight pen is estimated as 0.70 birds/ft2. Flight pens generally contain approximately 20 percent of the total pen space enclosed for shelter and dry space for feeder and waterers. Flight pens are relatively inexpensive, consisting of wire or netting supported by 4 x 4 wood posts. Several variations of flight pens are used and the actual cost depends on the resources available on the farm. If most of the materials used to construct a flight pen are purchased, then the facility may cost approximately $0.70/ ft2. The disadvantage of flight pens is a high rate of mortality. The high rate of mortality probably occurs due to exposing quail to a cold, wet environment. This condition creates an excellent environment for disease outbreaks such as Bronchitis, Capillaria, Histomonas and Ulcerative Enteritis. 

Conversely, a low percentage of growers (ca. 10%) are raising bobwhite quail in scaled down “Broiler Houses” for the entire 17-week production period (Figures 3 and 4). Bobwhite quail production should be a primary enterprise on a farming operation for a grower to invest in this type of facility, which ranges $7-8/ft2. With a bird density in enclosed barns at 2.0-2.5/ ft2, housing 25,000 quail could be very expensive. The primary advantage of a quail barn is that the birds are removed from a cold, wet environment. Pine shavings are usually placed in the house at a depth of 4 inches. The incidence of mortality is relatively low in this type of facility because of the warm, dry environment it provides. Growers producing quail in an enclosed facility have experienced the percentage of flock mortality as less than 5 percent. This reduction in mortality can help offset the increased building cost associated with a quail barn. 

Additional advantages of quail barns include a lower incidence of cannibalism and reduced feed cost. From 5 to 14 weeks of age, birds are grown in the dark to prevent cannibalism. Light stimulates bird activity, thus less cannibalism occurs with birds grown in darkout housing. However, dim light should be provided to the birds at 14 weeks to stimulate feed consumption so that birds will have adequate energy reserves for flying when marketed at 17 weeks of age….

Pack ‘em in, cut expenses, keep enough of them from being eaten by their peers so the Vice President can kill them when they’re 17 weeks old. Very sporting.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 14th, 2006 at 12:24 am and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.