Bog Myrtle & Peat

It was with no small amount of delight and triumph that I found my first grey partridge egg of the year this morning. Although it looked a little small, research online has shown that it is within the average expectations for a partridge egg, weighing around 14g (the average is 14.1g). I must admit that I am extremely pleased to have got this far with a species which does not have the reputation of being the easiest to keep in captivity.

We had a great deal of rain last night, which has flooded some of the pens and made all of them extremely soggy. The pens that I built for my partridge pairs has a dark, enclosed area for laying, but this egg was lying out in the middle of the run, covered in mud. Looking inside the enclosed area, I can see that something resembling a nest had been built and then flooded out, so I wonder if the egg was laid out in the open as a result. I took the egg out and cleaned it, then built a new nest in the enclosed area on a drier piece of ground and placed a plastic dummy egg in it. Ideally, I’d like to train the birds to lay in the enclosed area so that the eggs are safer and easier to access.

I took this egg out of the run because it was lying out in the open, but I don’t know whether to take the real eggs out and replace them with plastic eggs as and when they are laid or whether I should wait for an entire clutch to be laid before taking them. As always, suggestions are welcome.