Beginner with questions! ;)

[CT Hunter]

Hi!
I have been looking into raising quail for a while now and I remember when I started looking into them last year a lot of what I read and heard on some podcasts which I sadly couldn't find again, was raising them indoors in a "shelf" like system.
I am still in the planning phase of this all and am planning to have them in the basement (since a outdoor set up currently isnt a option), it is currently unfinished and used for storage so I was thinking of building "shelves" i.e the stacked style cages, maybe rollable, 4x3x1 and having them stacked as such. This raised multiple questions for me, I was wondering if I could place 2 males and 10 females in these since it would give each bird 1sq ft of space and the males 5 females each, but I was worried the males will fight? Also I do plan on both meat and eggs, now when I hatch the quail, what should i do for grow out for the meat birds? Would having them in the shelf system be effcient or should I have one super "shelf" for growout? One thought i had was to have 1 shelf all hens for just egg production, then 2 shelves for breeders to keep bloodlines more diverse and then to have the rest be growout shelves, but then I figured this wouldn't work because of room. Also, I was looking at eggs from Stellar Farms for the jumbo coturnix,are they pretty good stock and/or should I get some from another place too to diversify the bloodlines? What do you guys think of this? Thank you for reading my long ramblings!

 

[pennyJo1960]

Welcome to Backyard Chickens never have worked with quail hope someone will come in to help who does @Ravynscroft will know more

 

[sylviethecochin]

@JaeG and @007Sean should be able to help you.

I'll note that James Marie Farms is supposed the be the man for Jumbo Coturnix Quail, but I don't know anything about Stellar.

Good luck and welcome to BYC.

 

[JaeG]

Quail are great little birds. I wouldn't worry about having an egg laying group, just incubate the really lovely, big, fat eggs and eat the ones that are a little small or skinny (or just the ones that don't fit in the incubator).

It depends on how often you want to be incubating and growing up quail for meat (i can't quite bring myself to eat them - maybe one day). It's probably better to do a big batch and freeze up what you aren't consuming quickly rather than small batches as you'd need more grow out cages for smaller batches. I'd make your grow out cage large but make it so you can slide in a divider or two in case you get a trouble maker, or end up with two batches. Different groups of quail need to be integrated properly just like chickens.Think about how you will brood the chicks too.

Only breed your sweetest quail as some can be downright horrible and overly aggressive. It's no fun having to make more cages because one quail has decided s/he is going to be a troublemaker and attack all the others!

With only 1sq/ft per bird two males in a cage probably would fight. They really need the space to stake out a territory when there is competition about.

I can't advise you on where to get eggs as I'm in another country, sorry. But hopefully some of that helps and ask any more questions you need to.

 

[Plip]

Are you building the cages yourself? If so, add a divider in the middle of that 4' cage, so you have two 2' sections. Then put five hens and one roo in each.

Are your arms long enough to get to the back corner of a 3' deep cage (assuming you can get your shoulder into the cage door a little ways)? You don't want to end up with your quail sitting in the back laughing at you when you're trying to collect them. Test this by reaching around a corner wall in your home and the measuring how far you can reach.

Quail that grow up together are generally less aggressive toward each other than those you try to integrate later. This doesn't eliminate every problem (some birds, like some people, are just aggressive), but it will prevent many issues you might otherwise have.

I know you hear "one square foot per bird" a lot. But a bit less than that is just fine. Quail aren't like rabbits that like to run back and forth in their pens, so room to exercise is no benefit to them. They need enough room to easily move around and access their food and water. Half a square foot per bird is really just as good as a whole square foot. They really don't get any additional benefit from the additional space until you get much larger (like an aviary) where they have cover and can hide and such.

So if you decided to go with 2' deep cages, you could still put six quail in a 2'x2' cage without sacrificing anything.

If you're designing these cages yourself, make sure to remember poop trays below each cage. Also, consider how you're going to empty the poop trays. Are you going to fill a bucket in the basement? Or are you going to carry each tray upstairs and outside (challenging if you have 4'x3' trays)?

Be prepared for some smell. In an enclosed space like a basement, it will smell. I don't find quail smell particularly offensive (compared to, say, unchanged cat litter), but I don't have them in a basement either. If you share the house with someone with a sensitive nose, he/she may claim to smell the quail upstairs, at least near the stairs.

The size of your incubator is probably going to determine how many eggs you hatch at a time (and therefore how many breeders you need). Unless you have a large incubator, the 10 hens you're talking about in one 4' section would be enough.

The amount of grow-out space you have is going to determine how often you can hatch eggs. So start with a couple of large grow-out pens, and go from there. If all goes well, add more when you need them (which might be in just a couple of months).

Good luck with it. I love our quail, and I find them some of the most manageable livestock to keep. I hope you get some and that yours are as good to you!

 

[Ulaidian]

Not much to add to the folks above. I have my chicks inside for the first 8 weeks, and you have to be fairly strict with the cleaning.. I don't use a wire shelf system, instead opting for a 4'x3' box with glass front, and a 6'x3' box, also with glass. These guys make the men's toilet at a non league football match smell like Channel No5.
Regarding the eggs.. and this was just me. I bought eggs from all over the UK and Ireland. I just wanted that mix, and had a 50 egg incubator. Out of that I got 36, of which 28 are now/were adult and ready to head outside (I culled extra males).
I think I am going to stick to mainly egg, and not so much meat, however I might incubate and grow some new blood once a year, over winter... with the resulting cull and quail meat.

 

[CT Hunter]

Are you building the cages yourself? If so, add a divider in the middle of that 4' cage, so you have two 2' sections. Then put five hens and one roo in each.

Are your arms long enough to get to the back corner of a 3' deep cage (assuming you can get your shoulder into the cage door a little ways)? You don't want to end up with your quail sitting in the back laughing at you when you're trying to collect them. Test this by reaching around a corner wall in your home and the measuring how far you can reach.

Quail that grow up together are generally less aggressive toward each other than those you try to integrate later. This doesn't eliminate every problem (some birds, like some people, are just aggressive), but it will prevent many issues you might otherwise have.

I know you hear "one square foot per bird" a lot. But a bit less than that is just fine. Quail aren't like rabbits that like to run back and forth in their pens, so room to exercise is no benefit to them. They need enough room to easily move around and access their food and water. Half a square foot per bird is really just as good as a whole square foot. They really don't get any additional benefit from the additional space until you get much larger (like an aviary) where they have cover and can hide and such.

So if you decided to go with 2' deep cages, you could still put six quail in a 2'x2' cage without sacrificing anything.

If you're designing these cages yourself, make sure to remember poop trays below each cage. Also, consider how you're going to empty the poop trays. Are you going to fill a bucket in the basement? Or are you going to carry each tray upstairs and outside (challenging if you have 4'x3' trays)?

Be prepared for some smell. In an enclosed space like a basement, it will smell. I don't find quail smell particularly offensive (compared to, say, unchanged cat litter), but I don't have them in a basement either. If you share the house with someone with a sensitive nose, he/she may claim to smell the quail upstairs, at least near the stairs.

The size of your incubator is probably going to determine how many eggs you hatch at a time (and therefore how many breeders you need). Unless you have a large incubator, the 10 hens you're talking about in one 4' section would be enough.

The amount of grow-out space you have is going to determine how often you can hatch eggs. So start with a couple of large grow-out pens, and go from there. If all goes well, add more when you need them (which might be in just a couple of months).

Good luck with it. I love our quail, and I find them some of the most manageable livestock to keep. I hope you get some and that yours are as good to you!

Thank you for the information! I do plan on building the cages myself and am planning a slide out "tray" for each layer that I might line with plastic and since the basement does have a door leading to my backyard I can just bring them up and spray them with a hose for easy cleaning. Now the cages themselves I don't believe 3 feet will be a problem for reaching and I also heard everything from 1/4th a square foot to 2 per bird so on the smaller end is probably superior like you say. I do like the idea of the divide since the males most likely won't have enough space for the males as people have said.

 

[CT Hunter]

Thank you all for the replies and the excellent advice. Now for these racks how should I do the growout pens? The quail would be there for only about the 6-8 weeks til they are full grown but would a full 4x3 without the divide like the more permanent breeders will have be able to work as a good grow out space? I wonder if the males would fight if there happened to be a large amount in 1 batch etc. in that period of time. For the brooder I was thinking of making a thing on the floor with the floor lined with these heavy duty electric mats my father normally uses when gets new chicken chicks for both cleaning and so they arent on cement along with the shavings til they can go outside and basicly mimic his set up but make it a little smaller. I was looking into incubators aswell and for a smaller one I found the Hovabator 1602n and it seems to have decent reviews so any opinions on that?

Edit: If I get eggs from James Marie Farms would I have to worry about inbreeding at all or will the batch be diverse enough for that to not be a problem?

 

[Plip]

For grow out pens, the bigger the better. 20 quail in a 4x3 is less crowded than 10 quail in a 2x3, even though it's the same amount of room per bird. It just flows better. And I wouldn't worry much about aggressiveness until they near maturity (when they'll be ready to go anyway).

I wanted James Marie quail when I first started, but it seemed as though it might be a bit of a wait (I didn't actually talk to them, though, so I'm just basing that I what I've read here and elsewhere). So I bought some eggs on ebay that were from bird originally from James Marie Farms. I was very happy with what I received.

I don't think you're going to have an issue with not enough diversity.

 

[CT Hunter]

For grow out pens, the bigger the better. 20 quail in a 4x3 is less crowded than 10 quail in a 2x3, even though it's the same amount of room per bird. It just flows better. And I wouldn't worry much about aggressiveness until they near maturity (when they'll be ready to go anyway).

I wanted James Marie quail when I first started, but it seemed as though it might be a bit of a wait (I didn't actually talk to them, though, so I'm just basing that I what I've read here and elsewhere). So I bought some eggs on ebay that were from bird originally from James Marie Farms. I was very happy with what I received.

I don't think you're going to have an issue with not enough diversity.

That makes a lot of sense, I will see if I can get the birds from them, maybe ordering somewhat in advance if I can to make a time table for the cage construction since the order time + the incubation time should give me enough time after I plan it all out. This seems to be working out so far!