Raising quail... with chickens? Together safely?

[ab808]

I recently found out that, despite being surrounded by mostly agricultural land, there is a "2 hens per household" law in my area. Needless to say, I'm incredibly disappointed... but I will still be getting my 2 hens. There is no law regarding quail... so I am now planning on having 2 chickens and several quail. I am still just in the beginning researching phase for this endeavor. Does anyone know, can I raise several quail (maybe 5-6) with the 2 chickens, and just provide one very large coop and enclosed run for all of them? Any advice with this is greatly appreciated! Mahalo!

 

[nayeli]

No, the quail can give chicken deadly diseases and I'm sure vice versa. Quail have a small space requirement 1sq ft per quail. They are often kept in hutches, so it shouldn't be hard for you to keep them seperated. I keep mine in my garage.

 

[QuailGuy88]

Nayeil is right, chickens and quails should never be housed together. Diseases can spread killing many (or all) of your birds and quail could get injured (being so small). Those are the two main reasons (that I feel) to not keep quail together. Hope that helps!

 

[ThaJuicyJuice]

I know this is going to be pooed on, but I gave up chickens a year ago. I live in Miami where we are allowed 0 hens. Screw the law I say. I've had as many as 12 Hens in my tiny little urban backyard. I settled on 4 and enjoyed the eggs. They were great to have around, but I found that chickens really do need to have the space to scratch and dig. They will quickly soil up an area and require and deserve more attention than city folk may realize or be willing to do.

If you are in an urban area, you probably have urban pests. Rats, Coons and Opossums, If so, you will have dead chickens, unless they are locked down more than Alcatraz. You then have the monitor free range activity. It's worse with rural predators I am sure, but it's difficult to maintain safe precautions with a 9-5 or longer job.

Quail, are so much easier, less regulated, and more productive. For urban meat production they are unmatched compared with even urban rabbitry operations. They lay as many eggs or more than chickens. Yes it takes a lot more quail eggs to match that of a chicken egg, but you could get 100s of eggs per week from a garage set up compared to the 1-2 eggs per day you would get from your regulated two hen backyard coop.

Just sayin

 

[dc3085]

Ok so lets clear a couple things up here.

First, its the quail that are weak to poultry diseases, chickens immune system is much stronger and it would be a very very sick quail if it infected a chicken. I know people love their chickens but chickens are disease farms inside. This is why you shouldn't eat raw chicken eggs, all chickens carry salmonella in their digestive tract. Diseases that are very common in chickens like MG and Coryza, often do affect the chickens visibly and are never treated because they show no symptoms. Those same diseases will destroy your quail flock if they contract them.

All you need to do is keep them a several feet from each other and wash your hands between handling each species. Chickens like to be up high so make sure they don't roost on your quail pen, since eating the chickens feces is the easiest way for quail to be infected, but it can happen from touching one then the other also.

As far as pests go they don't make wire that raccoons can't pull quail through, and if you get wire that small they will just chew through it. I've had a raccoon pull several birds through 1/2x1/2 wire in small pieces all in one night, the first carcass usually breaks/stretches the wire enough to make it easy for them. You have to do whatever it may take to secure their pens down low. Rats are another story and they will chew on docile birds as well as eating toes in wire cages but there are many ways to deal with rat problems. I agree that chickens in the city are hard to free range, pests aside they will destroy your grass and any of your landscaping if you let them.

Click on the link in my signature to see one example of what happens when you don't practice bio-security with chickens and quail. I have other examples I can show you, if that one isn't disgusting enough. I know several people who keep both chickens and quail with no issues but they practice good bio-security.

 

[nayeli]

@dc3085 I have a question. We have a screened in porch and were considering putting the quail out there, do you think raccoons/predators would rip the screening and get in the porch? If yes, what if there was a dog or two out there in kennels?

 

[dc3085]

That should be fine. As long as they haven't gotten one of your birds they won't work too hard to get one and probably wont come in after them. Dogs work great because predators see them as a threat. No wild animal will risk its own health unless you have it cornered or it is starving. Your porch will smell more like people too and that is often enough to deter them.

They make a flashing red predator light to scare them off but I'm not sure how well that would work. I've noticed predator hunting at night that foxes and bobcats don't seem to see my red head lamp and will come right up to a bird distress call.

 

[GD91]

I know this won't go down well. Kept my quail & chickens around each other since I got them all. The quail live in a pen on grass & the chickens walk around the pen.The quail were out running around (escaped) on the grass in the garden with the chickens today. They just ignored each other, but they are very used to each other. The chickens don't bother the quail anymore (they did at first) & vice versa.

It was quite a funny sight watching quail dustbathing with the chickens

 

[dc3085]

I know this won't go down well. Kept my quail & chickens around each other since I got them all. The quail live in a pen on grass & the chickens walk around the pen.The quail were out running around (escaped) on the grass in the garden with the chickens today. They just ignored each other, but they are very used to each other. The chickens don't bother the quail anymore (they did at first) & vice versa.

It was quite a funny sight watching quail dustbathing with the chickens

You live in the UK poultry disease management has gone on much longer, and your fowl breeders typically are under more regulation in Europe than they are here. Chickens have been the most common livestock in your country for over 500 years.

However you played into luck that your chickens didn't come to you with Coryza or anything else, since diseases can come from moldy food, wet dirt, old feces, or can actually be transmitted from parent to offspring among many other things. Mathematically some people are going to be able to get by, but I don't suggest recommending practices to people that are based in a lottery of mathematics.

 

[dc3085]

I give the advice I give, is because I know people aren't taking their birds to vet to have a full panel run on them, most people (myself included) don't even pay the minimal NPIP fees (we should all be doing this, it isn't much of a system but you have to start somewhere) to get their flock tested for the most basic diseases. The reality is without a blood test you can't be sure that bird doesn't have something because symptoms manifest differently by the bird or sometimes not all.