All the quail advice

[mlcrowley]

Okay, here goes … any and all advice/constructive criticism is welcome, I need as much info as anyone’s willing to take the time to give. This will probably be long, apologies and thanks in advance if you make it to the end.

We purchased 10 coturnix quail, they were 5 days old. We lost 3 of the chicks in the first few days, totally unsure of why, but I suspect inadequate heat/food/water for their initial needs. Out of the 7 survivors, 4 were male. We’ve kept 1 male and the 2 females from that batch. They’re doing well! They’re now 8 weeks old (tomorrow).

We then purchased jumbo coturnix hatching eggs. I set 7 in the incubator, only one hatched!

We now have one chick that hatched Friday (Dec 8).

We use a Brinsea Mini II Advance incubator and a Brinsea EcoGlow in the brooder.

Now for the questions:
- will this little chick be okay by itself? It just hangs out under the EcoGlow chirping away. We often see it laying on its back under there, is that normal? I nearly always panic and pick it up to make sure it’s still alive, when I do pick it up, it snuggles so tight into my hand and then falls asleep. Is it just too cold under there?

- any ideas or advice on better hatch rates? I have no idea how old these eggs were when we got them (they said 48 hours max, but with one hatch, I’m not convinced). Could totally be my inexperience though!

We’ve hatched many batches of chickens eggs and had great success. I’m a bit frustrated with the quail process so far.

We originally purchased 30 hatching eggs, incubated 7, so I have 23 more, but they’re now 20 days old and have been sitting at room temp the whole time. I’m going to try a new batch with slightly different settings that I found on YouTube. Only difference from the video and what I did before was the turning cycle was slightly different and they used a cooling period, I did not. Will that make the difference? I’m well aware that these eggs may not hatch at all due to their age, but this will be an experiment, so I want to make sure all my settings and process are ideal so I know if it’s something I’m doing/not doing or if it’s the quality/age of the eggs.

Also, do quail require nest boxes? We have our other quail in a large brooder cage in the garage right now. Everyone has said they should start laying around 6-7 weeks old. They’re 8 weeks and no eggs. I don’t want to rush the egg laying or anything, they can start on their own time, but I’m curious if it’s something in their environment that’s delaying it. They do not currently have supplemental heat (the garage is heated to 50-55*F). Maybe lack of light? It’s cold and dark/gloomy here right now.

If you made it this far, thank you again for taking the time! We tried googling for all the advice, but it seems like there are very few sites with great quail information out there.

 

[scyllarus]

Hi! Welcome to BYC and keeping quail. I only recently started keeping quail myself (now going on...3 months?) so I would defer to any more experienced keepers. I'll try to answer a couple of questions, though.

Firstly, it would be best to have pictures of your set up and what you're feeding them. Also, if there was anything notable about the quail who died - watery poop, respiratory symptoms, etc.

Quail need higher protein feed than chickens do - the general recommendation is 30% protein for quail until they're adults, then to drop it down to 20-25%. Some people have good results with less protein, but that's as adults.

A single chick is generally not happy by itself. Quail are very much social creatures, and become stressed with being alone. It might be cold, hungry, thirsty - or it might be lonely. New chicks are recommended to have 95-100F degrees under a brooder, older chicks can take cooler temperatures as they feather out.

Shipped eggs can have lower hatch rates, usually about 50% even in best conditions. If it's not the shipping, it might be because fewer were fertilized - quail tend to breed and lay less in the winter, though if the person who sold you the eggs were keeping them under artificial light it shouldn't really affect fertility.

Iirc, quail eggs do better with slightly lower humidity (30-40%) and then up to 60% during hatch.

Your 20 day old eggs probably aren't going to hatch - the general recommendation is obviously the less time the better, but I think most people say under a week or two. I've never heard anyone say anything about benefits from cooling periods or turning specifics, so I have no opinions there.

Quail in captivity do not tend to use nest boxes. Things that can delay laying is definitely season/light, stress, changes to their environment, etc - mine actually took closer to 10-12 weeks to lay because they matured in fall.

There's also some quail articles in the stickied post and/or the articles, which might be helpful!

 

[mlcrowley]

Hi! Welcome to BYC and keeping quail. I only recently started keeping quail myself (now going on...3 months?) so I would defer to any more experienced keepers. I'll try to answer a couple of questions, though.

Firstly, it would be best to have pictures of your set up and what you're feeding them. Also, if there was anything notable about the quail who died - watery poop, respiratory symptoms, etc.

Quail need higher protein feed than chickens do - the general recommendation is 30% protein for quail until they're adults, then to drop it down to 20-25%. Some people have good results with less protein, but that's as adults.

A single chick is generally not happy by itself. Quail are very much social creatures, and become stressed with being alone. It might be cold, hungry, thirsty - or it might be lonely. New chicks are recommended to have 95-100F degrees under a brooder, older chicks can take cooler temperatures as they feather out.

Shipped eggs can have lower hatch rates, usually about 50% even in best conditions. If it's not the shipping, it might be because fewer were fertilized - quail tend to breed and lay less in the winter, though if the person who sold you the eggs were keeping them under artificial light it shouldn't really affect fertility.

Iirc, quail eggs do better with slightly lower humidity (30-40%) and then up to 60% during hatch.

Your 20 day old eggs probably aren't going to hatch - the general recommendation is obviously the less time the better, but I think most people say under a week or two. I've never heard anyone say anything about benefits from cooling periods or turning specifics, so I have no opinions there.

Quail in captivity do not tend to use nest boxes. Things that can delay laying is definitely season/light, stress, changes to their environment, etc - mine actually took closer to 10-12 weeks to lay because they matured in fall.

There's also some quail articles in the stickied post and/or the articles, which might be helpful!

Thank you for the response! The set up for the little one is basically a wooden box with a hardware cloth lid. We have paper down while it’s still tiny, but usually switch to shavings after a bit with the chickens, that’s the plan for this one once it’s big enough. There’s a small dish of crumble, a water dish with pebbles in it to prevent drowning, and the EcoGlow heat plate.

My local store didn’t have anything specific to quail so the little one is on a chick starter crumble. It says 18% protein which is woefully below 30%, I had read an article that recommended chick starter if you can't find quail food, but maybe that’s not what they need. Any suggestions for adding more protein?

The grown quail are eating an all-flock crumble and were on the same chick starter at first, they seemed to do well.

The ones that passed from that batch all passed within the first day of getting them, no respiratory symptoms, no runny poop or anything like that. My guess was the 45 minute drive home with no heat or the shock of the move, maybe the EcoGlow is not as warm as a heat lamp (if that’s what they were on before), etc.

I’m going to put a thermometer under the EcoGlow to make sure it’s keeping warm enough down there.

 

[Nabiki]

I would suggest that you start here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/category/quail.32/

There are articles on incubating, brooding, and basic care in there as well as a lot of other good information.

For you lone chick, if you can't find any other chicks around to keep it company, try a small stuffed animal and a mirror to help keep it from being too lonely.

 

[Nabiki]

You might try adding some boiled, crushed egg yolk to the feed to boost the protein until you can get some turkey/game bird starter for the chicks.

 

[scyllarus]

For future chick purchases, you can purchase power inverters that will power most things, including a brooder. We had to drive at least an hour and a half with chicks that were a few days old and they all did great with the brooder + being given water at least once an hour.