- May 30, 2013
- 354
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I would definitely recommend having something to enclose the bottom. I too don't like having them on wire. Our aviary was set up with an enclosed wire bottom, then we put turf over it in the hopes it would root through the wire and grow for the birds, but quail poo put paid to that idea.
However it did form a very neat way of covering the wire and creating a natural base for them very easily. The next problem we found is the bare soil just turned to mud whenever it rained, which was not nice for us and not for the quail either. Now we have bark chips down, they like to scratch through them for bugs with ups the protein in their diet for free as well as giving them a natural life.
At some point one of the staples holding the wire onto the bottom came off and rats dug in, they didn't seem to bother the quail but they were eating their food and costing us money. We have now fixed that by wedging bricks into the side of the aviary where the hole was.
I don't know about the wildlife where you are but if rats can get in so can snakes and even if the rats don't cause big problems the snake will. It is possible to have safe quail while still giving them a natural environment.
Another option would be to have a solid wooden floor, but I've never tried that and you would have to worry about it rotting etc and it would be hard to keep clean and dry.
You can make a quail cage very simply without having it raised on wire, just by making a 2ft or so high run similar to those you can buy for guinea pigs and rabbits, if you used this with a couple of hiding places and a wire bottom covered with substrate in the same way as the coop you show it would be a safe quail cage for your males/meat birds to grow out. It would be cheap to build and you could build it to be as big as you like.
Also, keep an eye on those cats. They may be chicken safe but you never know what's going on in their heads and a quail might look like dinner even if a chicken doesn't
However it did form a very neat way of covering the wire and creating a natural base for them very easily. The next problem we found is the bare soil just turned to mud whenever it rained, which was not nice for us and not for the quail either. Now we have bark chips down, they like to scratch through them for bugs with ups the protein in their diet for free as well as giving them a natural life.
At some point one of the staples holding the wire onto the bottom came off and rats dug in, they didn't seem to bother the quail but they were eating their food and costing us money. We have now fixed that by wedging bricks into the side of the aviary where the hole was.
I don't know about the wildlife where you are but if rats can get in so can snakes and even if the rats don't cause big problems the snake will. It is possible to have safe quail while still giving them a natural environment.
Another option would be to have a solid wooden floor, but I've never tried that and you would have to worry about it rotting etc and it would be hard to keep clean and dry.
You can make a quail cage very simply without having it raised on wire, just by making a 2ft or so high run similar to those you can buy for guinea pigs and rabbits, if you used this with a couple of hiding places and a wire bottom covered with substrate in the same way as the coop you show it would be a safe quail cage for your males/meat birds to grow out. It would be cheap to build and you could build it to be as big as you like.
Also, keep an eye on those cats. They may be chicken safe but you never know what's going on in their heads and a quail might look like dinner even if a chicken doesn't
