I want to raise for meat and eggs. I'm new to quail and building my bird condo now. I'll be finished sometime tomorrow and I'll go get my birds (Pharoah) tomorrow evening. The guy I'm buying from has everything from just out of the incubator to grown birds. I kinda want my cake and eat it too. I want to buy tomorrow and have eggs the next day. I want breeds, layers, and straight out the incubator for the next batch. Thing is I keep reading here about chicks, grow out, and layer flock. What's the difference? How do I go about organizing this thing? One cage for breeders, one for chicks, one with just roosters for, meat? I want this set up so I get eggs and as soon as a bird gets to harvest age poof they're in the freezer with more coming down the pipe and continuous eggs from whoever is old enough to pop em out. Can I band the birds leg to keep up with age? I want this operation efficient. I hope this post isn't to sporadically written to undrrstood. Thanks
1: Chicks need to be put in a brooder, that is a cage/container that has a heat source. As the chicks grow reduce the heat slowly ( I just lower the bulb wattage ), usually by four weeks old depending on the time of year they need no additional heat. 2: Breeders should be minimum ratio of 4 hens to one Roo, work on space of 1 square foot per bird. 3: Grow out cage is for birds destined for eating. As 50 % of all chicks born will be males , they usually are the ones that get eaten. 10 weeks seems to a good age to process. Hopefully this helps.
Instead of changing bulbs just buy a dimmer switch ($9 at depot) and wire it inline on the light fixture. I dont recommend bringing home live birds since you will also bring home (to your currently clean set-up) any disease or parasite they may have.
That is awesome information. I have researched here all over the place and heard many mentions of the different cages but none of it explained WHAT they were. Just that they existed. This info lets me know what I need and when to use it. I almost have my quail condo finished will be tomorrow. Now I need one more just like it for a grow out condo and then a brooder. I'll be all set. Ready to raise quail.
DC, I mounted a duplex receptacle alongside a dimmer in a box, I can just plug any (two) brooder lamps into this control box. I use 150 watt flood bulbs and the dimmer has a max of 600w, so even if I run full blast with two lights I still have a 50% safety margin.
So besides the lamps and dimmer what all needs tone in my incubator I'll build soon? I know it needs a thermostat but what kind? A/C? How do I control the humidity? Turn the eggs automatically?