Ok, after searching the archives, yes I did search them, I couldn't find the eye size or color for Valley Quail. I did find the size and color for Gambels, 4 or 5 mm brown, but need to know for some Valley's I'm getting close to doing. Also, anyone recommend the Van Dykes quail bodies. Going to do two flying and one standing and thought I'd take care of the whole order through Van Dykes. Any opinions are greatly appreciated. Thanks.
Reid
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I have done several quail, both Valleys and Gambels, It's been a while but I want to say that I think I used 6 mm..best bet is to measure the eye first but 4 mm sounds way too small to me..I always used the dark brown color...the bodies from Van Dyke are fine..they're so small though you could easily wrap them and save the 2.99 or 3.99 catalog price..
I like doing these breeds of quail, they always seem to turn out really well for me..for some reason my Bobwhites always look like crap though and for the life of me I can't seem to figure out why..? Oh well..
Good luck
Tj
dark brown works well for most quail species.
Jon
there are several pictures of scaled heads in the Breakthrough reference archives, they will confirm what you already got from Jon and TJ-check under the gamebird category
accidentally submitted before I finished, valley eyes are much the same-also make sure you click on Valley and California quail-same species frequently catagorized separately. Drop me an e-mail when you finish and let me know how you did.
Reid, I do between 15 and 20 valley quail a year, any 8mm dark brown eye is your best choice. I use the danny owens quail bodies, you can get them in standing or flying and they seem to be a good average size. I do have to trim them down a little at times. but they should do the job. A little tip on your valleys.. run a piece of thread through the nostrils about half the length of your bird before you start skinning once you've skinned the head out it makes it that much easier to re-invert the head and you won't ruff up so many neck feathers. Best of luck.