quailling101
In the Brooder
- Aug 5, 2016
- 14
- 3
- 14
Thanks everyone for all the suggestions. I appreciate them alli think there's a misconception about the level of work involved. yes, the coop needs to be checked on a daily basis but not the whole coop needs to be cleaned - only the droppings are scooped up. also, i was responding to a person with a (comparatively speaking) small coop & population - and i was assuming that quailling101 cares enough about his/her animals that such a task is no problem. a task that translates into taking a cat litter scoop and scooping up the droppings only - which, in such a small environment, shouldn't take more than 5 min. tops. i have several chicken coops with 14 standard sized chickens, 12 bantams and several moms that are currently rearing offspring (including quails). the largest coop (a converted porch with several 'habitats') measures approx. 8' x 25'. i scoop up their droppings daily - sometimes twice because it is so easy to do (and fun for me). ... but then again: i also clean the litter boxes of my cats daily.
with all that being said, i understand that sand is not ideal for every climate but where it is a good fit, it is the best. period. ;-)) *argh* i hope you are not thinking of converting your coop into a dire wire cage because you can not come up with another way to provide water for your birds. why not just use a simple chicken waterer such as this:
personally, i don't like the plastic jar and prefer to use the red base with mason jars (glass) that i change on a daily basis and put in the dishwasher. for a small group like yours, you might only need 17 oz mason jars.
I did switched to the waterer with a glass mason jar. It's mainly for the younger ones. I am planning to use nipples eventually for the sake of keeping the inside drier. I used sand before inside the brooder. The baby quails are popping machines and made the place so stinky. I tried to clean it daily too. Now that they are older, I moved them outside to the quail house. Mine actually is not deep litter. It's just that I lined the bottom of the coop with cardboard and put wood shavings on. I had them there for a week and they don't smell much. I really like it vs wire bottom because with wire bottom all the poop collect underneath and it attracts flies and it stinks too. Anyway, I have learned a lot from everyone here. I just had quails a little over a month and I love it. Thanks everyone.
