4'x8' Quail tractors effect on a suburban back yard in arid Eastern WA

In this picture the quail tractor with 70 adult Coturnix Quail has been getting moved once a day starting in the far right rear corner of the yard moving side to side and towards the camera position. You can see how the grass close to the fence is a darker shade of green and as you get close to the tractor it is yellowish. Once you get ahead of the tractor you can see the yard is a yellowish color but not as yellow as it is just after the quail have been on it.

In the picture below you can see the shades of grass a bit clearer. The middle of the yard where its the most yellow is where the tractor has recently been. Its kind of hard to tell from the pictures but there was a good amount of weeds in this yard and they are gone where the tractor has been for the most part.

In this picture you can see where the tractor has just been and the part of the yard it has yet to reach. Notice the weeds here and there in the distance where the quail have not been.

In this pic to the left is where the tractor has been and to the right it has yet to reach. If you look hard you can see the weed differences.

In this pic you can see how patchy the grass is and see the weeds a little better.

Here are a couple more pics of the quail tractor. As you can see the birds have plenty of room to move around even though they are stocked at half the so called rule of thumb for Coturnix Quail? Again this tractor is moved at least once a day so the birds are always on fresh greens and have the ability to search for seeds / bugs.






This is a trick i use to clean up weedy areas the tractors wont reach. Just a simple rabbit type cage with the bottom removed. The bottom is flipped on top and used as a roof. Also doubles as a medical ward or time out area :+)




P.S. I also added a water filter to the hose for this yard. This is equally as important as the quail if you want to bring your soil back to life and use less water in arid areas. You can order the filter housing and filter cheap on e-bay or buy a simple throw away models from a RV supply shop or at some retailers.

Weed your yard without chemicals, bring your soil back to life, use less water and get eggs & meat if you like. Oh and most of all give your Quail a much better life than in some cage with a 8" roof and metal floor. Talk about not getting to express their Quailness.

you do realize that you are "overcrowding" your quail. They should be kept 1 per sq ft.

I do realize that these quail are a million times better off stocked two per sq foot than any quail i have seen stocked one per ft in a cage with no grass. Do not believe everything you read. Not every GUIDELINE fits every persons ideas. The quail are happy and not fighting. Why does it matter how many are in one square foot? Who wrote this rule of one per square foot anyways? Some study done on quail that had nothing to do with quail in pasture pens? Probably.

I do not mind being the exception to the rule. If all i did was do what others say i would have quail in cages with a 8" roof and cage floor. Im happy with the Quail on grass and they seem to be also.

LJpnw said:

I do realize that these quail are a million times better off stocked two per sq foot than any quail i have seen stocked one per ft in a cage with no grass. Do not believe everything you read. Not every GUIDELINE fits every persons ideas. The quail are happy and not fighting. Why does it matter how many are in one square foot? Who wrote this rule of one per square foot anyways? Some study done on quail that had nothing to do with quail in pasture pens? Probably.

I do not mind being the exception to the rule. If all i did was do what others say i would have quail in cages with a 8" roof and cage floor. Im happy with the Quail on grass and they seem to be also.

Click to expand...

Total agree. If the quail don't fight and they are fine. There is no rule of thumb. It depends the kind and blood line of the quail. I have jumbo coturnix and they are so friendly.

Holy hostility, batman!

Just wanted to point out to everyone seeming to attack James for stating the rule of thumb that first of all, that is the rule of thumb.
Stating that there is no rule of thumb or saying that what you do automatically will work for anyone is bound to just leave people with less experience than all of us crowding their birds into a tiny pens to pick each other to death and then exclaim that "the Internet said I could do it this way!"
Also, the thread James referenced stated that this is the rule of thumb for happy breeding birds, and that more are perfectly fine for grow out pens and other situations.

A rule of thumb is something to go off of, it has flexibility depending on what people find works for them and what their individual set up is. It's totally valid for someone to voice concern when they see birds housed twice the accepted rule of thumb, and also point this out for anyone else reading who may just be getting into quail.
Jumping down his throat for that was totally uncalled for when you could simply explain that you are having no aggression problems, how long you've been doing it this way, and why it works for you.

Cheers,
Jessie

James did not have a link to that post until after we responded. He updated the post.

Now before you teach me how to respond to james why dont you take a second and think about this. James could have asked how the birds are doing being stocked two per foot in a pasture pen on grasses. If you look as his avatar and his tag for his posts you may form a picture of how he likes to come across to people.

Anyways my quail are happy living in the pen stocked the way they are. Much more happy than any quail i have seen in the wire cages with no dirt let alone grass.

My advice to everyone reading is this. Dont worry about rules of thumb. Pay attention to how things work in your own experiences. Adjust to what you see works. Again if i followed the rule of thumb i would be designing quail hutches with metal floors, 8" roofs & stacked 4 or 5 racks tall indoors with one square foot per bird.

Two per ft works great for me. Maybe i should write the rule of thumb for Quail on grass since there are only a few people doing it.

Hostility! Attack! Why not throw in terrorist? Do i need to remind you we are simply airing our difference of view in a forum on Quail. I see no swearing or threats hahahah

Relax. And stop trying to make something out of nothing. I have no problem with James. I just disagree with him and this rule of thumb he mentioned because my real life experience has proved otherwise.

I never edited my post.... otherwise, there would be this message: "Edited by James the Bald - Yesterday at 9:20 pm". The link was always there.

I guess it was an issue on my end because it was not linked yesterday for me. Or the site could have had an issue.

Most of our systems are not in any ones rules of thumb. You rarely hear people using alkaline mineral water for poultry let alone colloidal silver or food grade peroxide. And quail in mobile pens with no bottoms on grass is not common. People will say the rule of thumb is that its bad for quail to be on the ground because they will get diseases and other health issues. We have not found this to be true for pens rotated on grass.

At the end of the day i hope more of us put poultry on grass and stop using cages with wire floors. Its the least we can do to respect the spirit of these creatures that provide so much for us.

The picture from the end view where you can see a bunch of quail in the pen was taken the second day after that pen was completed so there were actually 100 4 week old quail in there at the time. The other pictures are from when the flock was thinned to 70. The flock was not thinned because of problems it was thinned because the extra quail were to be sold off to cut the cost of the quail we were keeping. Actually selling the 30 quail paid for the quail we still have.