Does anyone raise quail on the ground?

[007Sean]

If you can landscape as close as you can to the natural environment in your area, should be good to go!

 

[igorsMistress]

We're making progress on the quail garden. The side panel of shade cloth will be delivered tomorrow and we should get it installed with rest of the top before next weekend. I bought a bunch of plants to put in too.

 

[igorsMistress]

Got the roof on the garden today.

 

[007Sean]

View attachment 1531455

Got the roof on the garden today.

Looking good IM. Do you have predators in your immediate area? Just curious, cause if you do, you will want to put a wire apron around the outside perimeter of the enclosure. Also, I noticed your using chicken wire. Chicken wire is good for keeping the quail in but terrible for keeping predators out. You may want to look into putting some 1/2" HC at least 3' up from the base. That will keep most of the predators from reaching in and pulling the quail through the wire. HTH

 

[AlderCreekFarms]

Looking really nice! I agree with 007Sean that you should reinforce the CW with hardware cloth. Eventually I would like to have an aviary too!

 

[igorsMistress]

Thanks guys. The chicken wire was only intended to keep the chickens away from my garden. The only predators we really have are cats and birds of prey. The occasional coyote might pass through. I more concerned about roof rats but I don't know if they'd be a problem. I'm thinking about covering the bottom half with hc to be safe but I'm not sure about the top half.

 

[igorsMistress]

Making progress

 

[Fishkeeper]

Rats will eat eggs and maybe birds. You definitely want 1/4" hardware cloth to keep rodents out.

It's looking amazing! Some of those plants may be devoured by the quail, though. Try starting some sunflower seeds elsewhere and planting them in the aviary when they grow out of edible size, the quail will love that. Any sort of tough, durable landscaping grass (the big kind, like feather grass) should be good for them to run in and out of.

IMO, get them a 'feature piece' for decoration and playing on. A big stump, a tree branch, something large, solid, and good for hopping on.

 

[igorsMistress]

Thank you! I have a couple of stumps I'm going to put in there and some limbs large enough to climb on. It's too hot for any more work now though.

There's 2 plants I'm concerned they'll eat, my chickens LOVE one of them, but I can protect them until they're too big to be damaged. I have lots of practice with that

I'll be planting some xeriscape grass tomorrow morning, it'll grow tall so they can hide in it. With hc over the top they won't be able to kill it.

 

[007Sean]

Looking good IM,