I kept seeing it diagonally across from me up on Fairbank Street, what looked like a small, wooden self-serve farmstand. When a neighbor said it was for selling fresh quail eggs, I was more curious than ever. So when two young girls came to my door with a flyer about the Quail Patch, I saw my chance to ask if I could visit.
Matt and Melissa McRae and their daughters Quinn, 10, and Emma, 7, meet me in the driveway. Matt starts to tell the story of how the Quail Patch came to be, and is saying that it was really all on account of Daisy. At this point Emma runs into the house and returns with the subject under discussion: a 2-year-old very calm, friendly wirehaired pointing griffon with unusual markings—a mop of reddish brown hair that looks as though she’s gotten blonde highlights and a body of short, grayish hair.
Matt continues the story, saying Daisy is terrified of thunder so the family took her to a trainer who specializes in this breed. The trainer had a pen of bobwhite quail on the property, and Emma fell in love with the small, short-tailed game birds. She started lobbying for the family to get some, and when what Matt thought would be a passing fancy turned into a serious three-week campaign, the family had a discussion.
Quinn and Emma McRae hold mature quails while Daisy looks on solicitously. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)
The McRaes had already been having family talks about how they could be more self-sufficient, other than having a vegetable garden. They wanted something that would give the girls more responsibility, and it was important that they all learn new information from whatever they undertook, preferably something scientific. It should bring personal reward and benefit the environment. After quite a bit of research, they decided raising quail would actually meet all their criteria. Quail are quiet, friendly birds; they don’t peck and are easy to care for and very hardy. They start laying eggs at six weeks, and the eggs, three of which equal one chicken egg in volume, are high in vitamin B12 and other nutrients.
Matt tells me the first shipment of fertilized Coturnix quail eggs arrived and hatched within about 17 days. Since it was November, the McRaes kept the chicks, all but one or two of which were females, in the mudroom and then in the barn until spring when they put them in a home-built aviary out back.
At this point, Emma asks if I want to come see them. She and Quinn run into the covered tent-like structure and come out holding Copper, the boy, and Lilac, the girl. Their names are apt, reflecting the shadings in their beautiful feathers. Emma explains that the girls have a speckled belly and shows me Lilac’s. Each hen lays eggs in a speckled pattern of brown, tan, black, and white unique to her.
Selling the eggs was not in the original plan, Matt says, but after the first set of birds hatched, the girls wanted to hatch more, this time from their own quails’ fertilized eggs. That would mean more eggs (a hen lays about 320 eggs per year) than the family could use—even though the girls love them and Quinn often eats a dozen for breakfast, which she scrambles herself, “with lots of salt.” Selling eggs was a perfect opportunity for the girls to learn how to run a small business. The McRaes also sell hatching eggs, quail chicks, and adult quail.
A week-old chick, one of 17 from the third brood, almost doubles in size from day to day.
The girls feed grain to the quail (and watermelon as a special treat) and collect the eggs. The family chips in to package them in boxes of a dozen each and refrigerates them. Each morning Quinn puts new ice packs along with the eggs into the cooler in the farmstand. A woman in Chelmsford made a beautiful sign for the stand, and Quinn writes information and a friendly “Have a nice day!” message on the whiteboard attached to the front. Customers can pay with cash or use Venmo. Eggs are $3 a dozen, and special scissors to cut the smaller end of the shell are $2 (they’re too small to crack open). A flyer at the stand gives care and handling instructions and some recipes.
Emma tells me they have two ducks in a pen next to the quail. They are JT, named after Celtics player Jayson Tatum, and Lily, a “loudmouth,” according to Melissa. Currently lying in the shade under their small house, JT wags his stump of a tail when Matt calls his name. There’s a happenstance story here, too. One of the carpenters working on the house west of the McRaes came over to see the quail, and he talked about how much he enjoys having ducks as pets. Not long after, the 2-day-old ducklings arrived at the McRae’s house from California.
Matt opens the gate to let the ducks out; they never go beyond the yard. Emma says she feeds them compostable material—tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli, even basil and cilantro, and Matt adds that they need niacin, and so grain pellets are important to their diet. But they love foraging for bugs, and as we watch, they walk around with their bills constantly to the ground. Daisy—the hunting dog—lies near them.
Lily grabs a dried leaf and stretches her neck up to eat it. “They like the crunch,” Emma says. Both pens are mobile so they can be moved around the yard for better dining. Emma says the only time the ducks are a problem is sometimes they don’t want to go to bed at night, but they have to be padlocked in their house to be safe from predators.
A new batch of quail eggs was delivered a couple of weeks ago—this one with different varieties of quail for a broader mix of plumage coloring. I am invited in to see the incubator, a small, round machine with circles of egg holders on what’s like an automatic Lazy Susan. It rotates every three hours to copy the shifting of the hen’s heat while sitting on eggs. A day or two before the eggs are due to hatch, Matt will take each one out and put it on the end of a candler, a kind of flashlight. If the light shines through, it means the egg is not viable. About 70% of any brood is fertilized.
Emma says chicks start pecking to come out and it takes less than 30 minutes for each to crack its way out. She shows me her iPad video of the first chick to emerge from the last batch. “He’s looking around saying, ‘Hey, everyone, come out,’” says Emma. Quinn says she remembers hearing all the cheeping when the first batch was born. The chicks will be moved to a pen with gentle, radiant heat from a brooder plate, where they can come and go under the heat until ready to go outside at six weeks.
While inside, Matt calls my attention to the beams in the living room. One half has machine-cut boards, the other hand-hewn, evidence that the house was once two separate buildings, one moved to the site. In a house history done by Harvard Historical Society genealogist Susan Lee, Matt has learned the older part of the house may date from as early as 1745. Lee could trace the deed back only to 1833, which shows the first owner as Andrew Patch, who, along with his wife, was active in town government.
It is this history that gave the quail business its name. With its double meaning, The Quail Patch on Fairbank perfectly captures the past and present of this interesting spot on the Little Common in Harvard center, where Daisy is still terrified of thunder.
The stand, made by Matt McRae, gets wheeled out to Fairbank Street when there is a supply of quail eggs.
