Brooding quail and lighting

[Mike the PickleMan]

Our quail are growing like mad! Between day 3 and day 10 they added 400% to their weight. We will be moving asap to out door pen as we are in south Texas with 90's day time and low 80's at night.
My questions are :
1] Will the birds slow weight gain after the brooder light is not used on them?
2] Should I continue to use a timer to trick them into eating off and on at night?
Thanks in advance,
Mike and Sheila

 

[Binki]

Hey there I'm not sure, I believe there are some studies online and/or you could do your own experiment and do some one way and some the other and see how they gained weight and how much food was fed, wattage used, etc.

You'd think that not eating for 1/3 of the day (the night) would slow down growth, but then again, I think sleeping helps them grow?? Hmm! Lol

 

[Mike the PickleMan]

Hey there I'm not sure, I believe there are some studies online and/or you could do your own experiment and do some one way and some the other and see how they gained weight and how much food was fed, wattage used, etc.

You'd think that not eating for 1/3 of the day (the night) would slow down growth, but then again, I think sleeping helps them grow?? Hmm! Lol

It is one of them conumdrum things

 

[JaeG]

One thing I have read is that if you are raising them for meat they grow better with light being limited to 8 hours as that stops them becoming sexually mature and expending energy on mating, fighting, egg production etc making them fatten more quickly.

Here's the article I found that in:
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/607/raising-japanese-quail/

 

[Mike the PickleMan]

One thing I have read is that if you are raising them for meat they grow better with light being limited to 8 hours as that stops them becoming sexually mature and expending energy on mating, fighting, egg production etc making them fatten more quickly.

Here's the article I found that in:
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/607/raising-japanese-quail/

I digested the article!~ Thanks a million.

 

[Mike the PickleMan]

8-15 update for first hatch:

Whites are 3.10 ounce at 17 dys and jumbos are 3.74 ounces same date born..
We moved them onto 1x1/2" wire 2 days ago and they are going outside tomorrow!

Here is a better chart as it does not show the total bird weight in case we do have a mortality:

Weird tho that the percentages are falling but drawing a straight line across the high points on the chart says they may even be improving

 

[Mike the PickleMan]

UPDATE 8-23-17:
First hatch chart. We lost.,... yes I mean actually lost one bird this week! No earthly idea what happened to it! We are installing a game camera to find the culprit. It has to be a snake or a rat????? We missed weighing them yesterday and the week 4 "brown" weights include only 11 birds and 8 days not 7. Also we moved them outside into 90 + deg F temps AND pulled the brooder lights from them!

 

[Mike the PickleMan]

We had a little hatch today. Also have hurricane Harvey baring down on us.

 

[Mike the PickleMan]

Sometimes nature gives you lemons. In my case where I work on call 24/7/365 1/4...... Nature seldom gives me lemons Here are current weather conditions in Port Lavaca, Texas.