Fancy quail coop ideas

[katsallday]

I'm building a flight pen for my bobwhite quails. I want to make it fancy schmancy. It's 5ft by 5ft by 6ft. I was considering putting a small pond with a fountain in it, and growing shrubs and what not. Any ideas? I also have a post about one of my quails illnesses so if you know anything about quail health I'd really appreciate some help there.

 

[casportpony]

A pond would be cute, but it would have to be very shallow since quail can drown easily.

 

[Kyo]

I'm building a flight pen for my bobwhite quails. I want to make it fancy schmancy. It's 5ft by 5ft by 6ft. I was considering putting a small pond with a fountain in it, and growing shrubs and what not. Any ideas? I also have a post about one of my quails illnesses so if you know anything about quail health I'd really appreciate some help there.

watercress and duckweed might be really good in the pond, free food for them to eat and duckweed grows fast. But like the other person said, make sure it's VERY shallow and probably small in general, also make sure if rain can get in that you have an overflow to bring the water away from the cage. Quail seem to be pretty dumb so they might hang out in the water without really realizing it and get a chill if you've colder seasons.

I've personally been on a mission to find plants to put into my run that can handle some nibbling. From what I've seen ferns may be an option, but I'd recommend double checking before taking my word, since I"m still a novice on what is quail safe.

 

[katsallday]

A pond would be cute, but it would have to be very shallow since quail can drown easily.

Yes I agree, I would do something where they 100% couldn't drown. I am worried about any diseases or sickness they could get from the water? It would have moving water so not stagnant, and I would change the water completely weekly, but I'm still worried lol

 

[katsallday]

watercress and duckweed might be really good in the pond, free food for them to eat and duckweed grows fast. But like the other person said, make sure it's VERY shallow and probably small in general, also make sure if rain can get in that you have an overflow to bring the water away from the cage. Quail seem to be pretty dumb so they might hang out in the water without really realizing it and get a chill if you've colder seasons.

I've personally been on a mission to find plants to put into my run that can handle some nibbling. From what I've seen ferns may be an option, but I'd recommend double checking before taking my word, since I"m still a novice on what is quail safe.

Oh thank you for such detail! I will make sure there's a runoff area! I live in florida but I'm a helicopter mom and all my coops have heating lamps in the "winter" lol. Maybe in the winter I can put a mesh over the pond so they can't fall in but can still drink? I have 2 beautiful snowflake bobwhites that I've been brooding for a few days. I put crazy tech in it, with a camera connected to 2 digital thermostats that feed constantly to my phone. I don't want anything to happen to my precious babies

 

[Whiskybear]

At that scale I could see using an aquarium under-gravel filter under the "pond." Just build it to dimensions they’re commonly available in. That shallow, you could easily conceal a line from a small water pump in a corner of it to a cascading filter with gravel, etc… (In or outside the cage.) With the pump pulling water down through the gravel of the pond, droppings and other heavier crud would stay less stirred up, and the the gravity filter would keep the water coming back in relatively clean. You could run an aquarium gravel cleaner through the pond bottom a couple times a week; and since the pump would be above the water line, it could be swapped out to run the gravel cleaner too.

 

[LT71689]

To prevent drowning, you could probably build sort of a grate out of hardware cloth and a frame that you sat just a few inches into the pond, so if they wound up in the water they could safely stand on top of it. If you’re doing some sort of water plants they’d easily grow through it, and you could hide the edge of the frame with rocks/plants around the edge