Gonna try quail

[Birddog1148]

Well I have been keeping chickens for about 10 years. And ducks about 3. So I am going to try my hand at quail now. Ordered some eggs this morning that will ship next month. Will get an incubator this weekend. And am really thinking about a hatching time cage. I am thinking I would like to consume about 4 birds a week, but maybe less.

 

[Nabiki]

One of the things I wished I'd known when I started with quail was to keep them on the ground rather than in a cage.

My first setup:

My current setup:

 

[Birddog1148]

One of the things I wished I'd known when I started with quail was to keep them on the ground rather than in a cage.

My first setup:
View attachment 3071316
My current setup:
View attachment 3071319

I am worried the 2 knuckle heads pictured will scare the quail. The mostly ignore the chickens and ducks but they like to spook them once in a while. When I said I wanted to consume 4 quail a week what I meant was 2 for me and 1 each for the dogs.

 

[Nabiki]

As long as you make your pen predator proof, they will get used to the dogs.

 

[_-Captain BRM-_]

One of the things I wished I'd known when I started with quail was to keep them on the ground rather than in a cage.

My first setup:
View attachment 3071316
My current setup:
View attachment 3071319

So why do you choose to have them on the ground?

 

[Nabiki]

So why do you choose to have them on the ground?

• The wire bottoms are hard on their feet
• I don't have to put in separate dirt/sand baths, since they have plenty of dirt to play in
• Their pens are on my garden beds, so I just hoe their poop under and it fertilizes the bed
• The cage requires cleaning, the garden beds don't. I just move them around 3 or 4 times a year
• They are much happier on the dirt than in the cage

 

[Birddog1148]

Well one step closer

 

[Whiskybear]

If you’re not moving those ground cages, you have to clean them, and that ain’t no fun. I won’t be making any more on the ground. scraping out the sandbox side gets to seem like a chore sometimes, but it’s a breeze compared to scraping crap off a wire floor on the ground Or mucking out hay/wood chips. Just my $.02.

 

[Nabiki]

If you’re not moving those ground cages, you have to clean them, and that ain’t no fun. I won’t be making any more on the ground. scraping out the sandbox side gets to seem like a chore sometimes, but it’s a breeze compared to scraping crap off a wire floor on the ground Or mucking out hay/wood chips. Just my $.02.

Mine don't have floors. They're directly on the ground, so you can hoe the poop under.

 

[Whiskybear]

Mine don't have floors. They're directly on the ground, so you can hoe the poop under.

if mine didn’t have floors, I wouldn’t have birds. Neighbor tried a wire skirt going out maybe 18” from the outside base of his chicken run. No dice. Too many thing like to dig around here.