Discover Texas Episode 42 Quail Farm

it's time to hit the road and discover Texas with Annie Studebaker get ready to travel deep into the heart of the Lone Star State meeting friendly folks and exploring fascinating places experience a way of life like nowhere else in the world as we uncover the rich history and culture of Texas discover adventure discover excitement discover Texas with Annie Studebaker you today our travels take us to Bandera Texas a town full of rich history and the home of diamond H ranch at this ranch we will see how the quyllur hatched raised harvested dressed and packaged so don't go away as we discover Texas together my name is Chris cheese and I am the owner of diamond H ranch quail farm here in Bandera Texas the history of this quail farm is I grew up in a family business that sells wild game meats the business is Broken Arrow ranch and so we got started selling medicine from deer and antelope harvesting deer and antelope and branched out into some wild boar and a few other products and one of the challenges and that business is always trying to find what is the next product that you can add on while staying true to some of the philosophies that we had in that in that business so quail is kind of a natural fit with venison and game meats and diamond H ranch is located here in Bandera which is about 40 minutes away from Broken Arrow ranch where I grew up so relatively close by by Texas standards and it was a business that was operated by another family for around 15 years and then we heard that the business was there the property was for sale and we started our discussions with the previous owner the the Harringtons Tom and Polly Arrington organize the deal to to purchase the property back in 2010 and we spent a long time starting to get everything back up and running again put everything back into a good repair after it and out of the lane of a low and we've kind of grown it your year by year [Music] so part of the reason we're so concerned about biosecurity especially right here is this this being the hatchery it's it's the cleanest place in the entire farm so we've got the egg sitting in here if you introduce that into the eggs you get a per hatch rate as the chicks are incubating or as the eggs are incubating again if you introduce anything into there you're you're incubating these at high temperature high humidity which is perfect for growing viruses bacteria it's the perfect environment for so we've got to try to keep that out and keep this area as sterile as possible so so this is a week's worth of eggs from our breeders you man yes so these eggs we collect our eggs from the breeders throughout the week and we're getting ready to put these into what we call our Center this is where they're going to start incubating so these have been sitting storing in here starting on on Saturday all the way up here now for Friday and it's a little bit cool in here it's about 55 degrees and the reason for that is this is like hitting the pause button on the incubation of these eggs so you can hold these eggs at a cool temperature for about 10 days before you start seeing a decline of the hatched percentage that gets out of holder longer than that Rio's inside of here start to die but you can hold it for a short period of time so we're going to move these into our incubators to let them start doing the actual incubating mimicking a mother hand sitting on the on the egg so it's going to go from feminists this gotta go from the small so heaven is cooler cause temperature to the warmer ok let's start let's start growing temperature so normally in nature when this egg is HAP's or the sega's late its immediately under the mother hand so it's it's it started off if it wasn't it could last ten days oh well nature you don't ever get at this you know this cold so they're gonna hold yeah so they're gonna they're just gonna kind of hold this in or they're gonna start incubating immediately but here because we're not trying to do it one at a time we're trying to do it in a big a big batch a big wok science has figured out poultry science has figured out that you can you can hold the egg for a limited time you can't do it enough I know they can't do it for a long time but you can hold it for a week and not really suffer okay [Music] this is a biggie actually we have more than two we've got a whole bunch of them scattered around the room here that are that are used at various times and for various size batches but this is an old this is this is one of our favorites because it's an old one really an antique that we restored and got it got it working again to more modern standards [Music] these are cutter necks quail cutter necks these are jumbo a and a Texas A&M guitar necks quit there they're native to Europe and Asia but the the big advantage is that these birds would naturally mature faster than a lot of other lot of other quail so whereas a native bobwhite quail matures in 16 to 18 weeks the cutter necks quail matures in six weeks they stay in here for 18 days temperatures right around 99 degrees so it's it's hot I mean it's it's basically the quails body temperature is ninety nine hundred degrees so that's what a mother hen would it would it would feel like with the mother hen sitting on top of them they do not like I said earlier with the biosecurity you know this is its height its high temperature high humidity it's perfect for growing viruses and bacteria that's why we have to keep all of this very very clean so after every batch we go through it's why we've got this material on here that allows us to go through and sanitize this incubator after each turn so the other part is if chick started hatching in here two things happened number one they don't really have anywhere to move around and they're gonna they're gonna fall off of these trays and it's not going to be very nice for the chicks the other part is when they hatch and they pip out of these eggs that creates a lot of debris you can eggshells you get feathers all that kind of dander and things like that that can contaminate a an incubator and make it that much more difficult to clean this has got to be the moat the cleanest cleanest cleanest of the clean so what wait so we don't introduce any kind of viruses or bacteria into these eggs so the eggs sit in here we can clean this every time but it's an easy job and we can make sure it's perfectly sterile when they start when these things are ready to hatch a few days before we move them out of here and move them into our stage two which is our Hatcher's the eggs are moved onto trays and we can get those dirty and keep these clean they're actually they're here for they hatch in 18 days so yeah so they move here in 16 days and then move over there and those shelfs in there throughout the day a little rotate back and forth to mimic a hand sitting on there it helps you know stop birth defects and any other you know problems that they may have if they were sitting still you and here you can you can see some of the trays so eggs have moved from the Centers these are eggs that are ready to hatch and they'll be they'll start hatching over the weekend Sunday Monday Tuesday you can see that they're here loose on these trays as the chicks start to PIP out they'll be they'll be contained into these trays as well as any of the shells any of the the dander and the feathers and the fluff you know we could come in and we'll clean and sanitize this but the eggs are only in here for a couple of days and they've matured so we don't have the same risk of introducing the viruses and the bacteria here as we do over there with the eggs they don't that's too early they're all pretty pretty much on the schedule you'll see them you'll see them hatch on Sunday the big day is Monday and then you'll see a few few remnants on Tuesday and then it's over [Music] oh yeah there you go perfect [Music] [Music] right it's starting to wiggle and get out and you can see that they're actually it's called dipping they're cutting a circle around the egg with their beaks from the inside for this one here about to come out so from the hatchery the coiler brought here and they've got Heidi because they're pretty they're pretty vulnerable at this age you know a lot of a lot of access to water a lot of access to feed and we have them in these in these Corral's to keep them close to this heat and close to the speed in this water so that they don't won't go wandering off into some dark corner and then get died from exposure these were born today yeah [Music] they are eating and so the one you saw hatch earlier would be doing this within a couple hours so healthy [Music] well the quatre niché's you're trying to raise as calm as poss the medicated or as calm as possible because really you don't want them stress anytime that we're working with them anytime that you know even it up to harvest you don't want to stressed because that would affect the quality of the meat so I think our guys are in here multiple times every day working working the birds lucky to them checking the water lines checking the feeders checking the birds themselves they go from the hatchery to what we call the brood area which would be the inside area and they're there for three weeks and then after three weeks they're moved to this month called the grow out area or outside which it's still it's covered but we have these these open-air curtains on the side not a ventilation system where you've got everything sealed off and you're trying to just blow air through here with with big fans we're trying to do sunshine and sunshine and fresh air and so they're out here for another four weeks and then they're ready to be harvested then we'll come we'll gather them all up and we'll take them over to processing pretty close to this these are around five weeks old so they've got a couple more weeks to go but they'll look just like this just a little bit larger they are white so one of the interesting things about the kinetics that we raised is we actually raise the white species of these birds a lot of places are raised that natural of their color is brown but we raised a white species and the reason for that is when you pluck the bird you pull the pull the feathers off you get a really nice clean looking skin on most of your domesticated poultry is white the turkey that you eat under Thanksgiving table is probably a white turkey a lot of the chickens that you eat are also white chickens and the difference is with the brown bird when you pluck it you still get some of that pigment and they're kind of so that's the dose treat of brown bird and a white bird it just has to do with the appearance of the skin right so you got the water system and the feed feed lines all the way around [Music] you so this is the freedom room so before we go to harvest we go through the room so today the grub arts kind of select the best specimens from each batch and regular places and then bring them into here where we have to make our next generation of quail so when they they'll stay in here for about six months and then at the end of six months they've they're their product productivity has has pretty well decline and they've removed them out for processing right right but we don't we won't use it as kind of our prime meat at that point we'll use it for some of our some of our trim right right so what we'll do is if most of the birds are destined for harvest just just a few of them you know some of the top specimens will move into here for for breeding yep so in here there there in these in these pins there's actually a little pass-through so they're not just in one little pin they can they've got free roam back and forth so that through food and water it's kind of the same as a little as the grill that area just just a little bit smaller but they'll lay the eggs and the eggs will come down onto these conveyor belts and twice a day our hatchery employees will gather up the eggs and they'll actually catalog everything based on Road and location so they'll know you know who how production is going who's producing eggs who start to Taylor off on their production and all of that right yeah look it's kind of an apartment complex so they live they laid their eggs and they all come down onto this conveyor belt and then they get collected throughout the day [Music] you [Music] so we are now walking into the processing room where they were they will all be cutting all the products that we make everything from our semi-boneless to our legs to our boneless breasts every product is made in this room okay before we go in there tell me what are the rules to enter before we enter this in 30 making sure we have on one of our smocks and some sort and some sort of head protection or I guess my hat cause my head qualifies for that but yeah the birds get brought up from Cato in cages to this back door and they get unloaded onto this table and our harvesters pull out one bird at a time and floppy Ken and then they get put into what would you call those thank you well they're put ear and prays for for bleeding yeah for bleeding yes so the drain all the blood out there and that helps with the quality of the meat and then they get put into the skull too right here where it heats them up and it loosens the feathers off and then what's that you're taken out of here they get put into this which is a dinner by picker and that will yes and they come out without any feathers all right all right knocked off all the tears that spins around and you've got little rubber fingers that basically act like like real human fingers just pulling off of the pulling off the feathers Oh interesting so see I was thinking that everybody started yeah no this doesn't in 30 seconds gotta see and how many can you put in here we do bachelor 25 they're loaded out of here the pass through this door and working down this table is where you would have your meat inspector inspecting the bird making sure it's clean and safe and wholesome as well as we do the initial evisceration any kind of fine-tuning on the feathering clean up then it gets weighed sorted and put into ice barrels to chill overnight all right Fran so what we have is today's of processing day so the the slaughtering processing are kind of two separate operations so on a slaughter day this table would be lined with with their employees and they're doing the evisceration and the cleaning the rinsing the inspection and then they're chilled and then once they're chilled they come to get brought out here where they get in wha one more time and then we're starting the initial sorting for quality and size as well as some of the processing that's happening at different parts around the room yeah so we've got a few different processes we're making some whole quail right here so this is a whole hole blown in quail so he's cleaning out the inside cleaning out the exterior chicken for feathers but these will not become somebody set a hole and some we sell the semi-boneless but these are already so this is one of the most popular cuts this is the semi-boneless quail and what it is is it's the whole quail with the all about removed except for the drumstick and the wing bone [Music] yep [Music] from that they can they can cook it like that which is nice just put some seasoning or you can stuff it with any kind of stuffing of your choice yeah those look those are great as you can see they get pretty quick at doing this too I if I were to do this it would take me upwards of five minutes just to do one and they can do one in less than less than a minute so now we're making some of our quail flowers so these are the the quail breasts with a slice of jalapeno wrapped in bacon and skewered we don't we just leave it your fee Vanessa's yeah because everybody likes to do their own their own thing with them with the pumpers so with you can put your own seasoning on it but whatever kind of flavor I love the flavor choice comes from the glaze at the end you can do a barbecue or a teriyaki or honey or anything like that and this is this is Israel our processing manager he's in charge of this whole operation in here so after after their process all the boots come over here for one final quality check or looking over the birds making sure they're there free of any blemishes as well as all the feathers are off of it doing any kind of last-minute picking so it's actually three separate stages throughout the process where they're checking on feathers and they get packaged everything's vacuum sealed and it's ready to get shipped out [Music] well I appreciate y'all coming out and turn around with us and so we've prepared a little barbecue for you out there and some barbecue some quail so we'll get to try out some of this stuff today on a good note [Music] we have truly enjoyed learning about coil production at Diamond H ranch these delicate birds live in the perfect environment and are provided with healthy diets which produce Hardy and tasty birds thanks for joining us we'll see you on the road as we discover Texas together [Music]

Channel: VTX1 Companies

Views: 426,316

Rating: 4.8086591 out of 5

Keywords: Bandera Texas, Diamond H Ranch, Discover Texas, VTX1 Companies, Quail Farm, Wild Game Meats, Broken Arrow Ranch, Product Marketing, Tourism, Farming, Animal Ranch, Quail Breeding, Incubator, VTX1, VTX, Annie Studebaker, quail

Id: PYbmmvxCQz0

Length: 25min 52sec (1552 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 29 2018