Beginner cage size question

[CSKA]

I planning to get started with Quail, on a very small scale just to test the waters first.

I have a small cage which is 31 inches by 19 inches.

Is this enough to have 1 male + 3 or 4 females for parent stock (this would be for that bigger breed Jumbo)?

 

[Nabiki]

You want at least 1 square foot per bird. There are meat producers who will say 3 birds/square foot, but that has always seemed inhumane to me.

Remember to subtract the space that you use for feeders, waterers, dust baths, hiding places, etc.

I would say that your cage is big enough for 2 or 3 birds, which isn't enough for a male. If you just want eggs, I would just get 2 or 3 hens.

 

[nao57]

Also, if there's not enough space they can get snippy at each other. This doesn't mean you did anything bad. But when there's a shortage, like not enough food, or the nutrition isn't as good as it should be, or not enough space that gets them stressed out and they take it out on each other.

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Another thing you can try is to have like a closeable atrium room for when you need to move them into a second partition for when you want to clean out the main area. Some people say they just pull them out and put them in something else; but having a partition area that's ready and fixed and help you save time on clean up.

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Although I have to disclose my experience is with other poultry, several types and not quayle. But avians basically have similar behaviors and brains. So some other things can work to adapt for them.

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Some people in quayle videos also they can get away with less space by having a system of the droppings being able to drop through the flooring onto something else, or like a slanted system to help it stay clean. They do this for egg collection to on the commercial quayle farms.

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Self sufficiency is very cool!

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An added worry is that for whatever you use, very young quayle their life cycle is so fast that they can literally starve without water always being in the cage. This is one thing people will remark about how to do the cage setups. And this could mean asking yourself if you want more than 1 water source in there in case one of them is compromised?

 

[Daniel Grey]

quayle

This will bother my concience for evermore.