Quail eggs breaking on wire

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drewskimac

drewskimac

Songster
6 Years
Oct 7, 2014
553
250
191
Siloam Springs, AR
Ever since I've moved my quail up off the ground and onto wire the eggs have been cracking and falling through the hardware cloth... the weird thing, though, is that they are eating the shells... never had them do that before, the only reason i know they just aren't laying is because i can see where the yolk has dripped beneath the wire... is this a sign that they need more protein or are they just breaking from being rolled around?
 
It sounds more like they are laying eggs without shells. Make sure you have giving them enough calcium.

Also the shell material wouldn't be hard right away, so if the egg is somehow falling through, leaving some organic material behind to stick on the cage wire, they quail probably just eat it up as if it's any other edible material.
 
Okay - I feed them non medicated chick starter for the protein content... So maybe it lacks calcium? I could try mixing some oyster shell in with their food... However, I've been feeding non med chick starter to my quail for a year and am only recently having these egg problems.
barnie.gif
 
Okay - Thanks. I have a bunch of dubia roaches/frozen mealworms that I can supplement into their feed... i'll do that and see if it helps as well as putting oyster shell in their feed... i'll see if it helps. The problem i've had with the oyster shell is that the quail don't touch it - so I always assumed they had plenty of calcium. I'll try it and see what happens.
 
Definitely sounds like they aren't getting enough calcium. The fact that the birds are eating the shell is a sure sign that they are trying to get more calcium. The shells should be so hard that the birds can't crack them at all. The oyster shell may be too big for them. You might try grinding into smaller pieces. Or try sifting it and giving the smaller parts to the quail and the bigger pieces to your chickens. You can also give them ground egg shells. All my egg shells go to my quail.

If I remember right, laying quail need about 24% protein.
 
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