What's in a name?

All of these little ones look just the same...

Most of our quails look fairly similar, and telling them apart can be tricky. We name them, trying to keep them individual, but even that can be complicated. We have some strong "family lines" - eg. Fig had a son called Fog; and Speck had a daughter called Spick, who then had a son called Spock, and so on. If Fog has any offspring we are a bit worried about continuing this process - will the chicks be Fug or Fag???

Some are named after fruit and veggies from the garden (Snowpea, Apricot, Plum, Melon, Nectarine, Hazelnut) and a couple were named in honour of their breed - Pharaoh quails - so, Rameses and Wadjet. Unfortunately that line died out quite quickly...
Others are just quirky individuals - like Blork (don't ask!). 

Unidentified chicks "this one" and "that one!"

Now we have our new 8 chicks - almost fully adult and in need of names. At the moment they are simply "that one", "the big one", "the little dark one", "the bully" and so on. We are thinking - as their mother was Snowpea - we might contine the theme with Greenpea, Sweetpea, Chickpea, Broadbean, Soybean, Mange-tout, Legume etc...but we also think we might need leg bands to work out which one is which!