Height of pen/cage?

[PinkBee]

I'm building a three tiered hutch for my future quail (incubator is in the mail!) and am worried I'm not going to be giving them enough head room per pen. I'm sort of following this design https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/the-cage-page-japanese-bantams-coop but using precut 2x4 panel pieces, so each pen will be 4Lx2W with 3 pens within a 4 foot high space. It comes out to roughly 15 inches per pen. Here's the problem. I'm going to flip the shelves over and, using 1x6s, make each pen capable of holding deep litter, thus potentially reducing the space to only 10ish inches per pen (though I doubt I'll get that much litter in the pens, it could happen.) I'm hoping to get the jumbo sized cots and, potentially, have 4-6 birds in each. I'm wanting to make sure my birds have lots of space and are comfortable, but not so much that they break their necks. (I wish I could put them in the yard in a tractor, but between the lawn service, snakes, huge geckos, ospreys and eagles, I'm thinking that for now, they're going to be penned/caged birds in my pool area.)

Thanks for any insight/info/comments!

 

[PinkBee]

Wish I could get a picture of this, but just to reaffirm my choice to keep my quail within my screened pool area, an eagle is ripping apart a mourning dove on the roof right over the window I stare out of while on the computer. A sudden flurry of feathers and bits just rained down in front of me.

 

[TwoCrows]

The link you included looks like a good design. Don't see a problem with it. 10 inches is about as low as you might want to go for comfort.

As for the eagle dining on dove....I get that all the time here with the hawks. They come here to feast on White-winged Doves all the time. Scares the crud right out of the chickens and quail when it happens right next to their runs. LOL

 

[swords75xlh]

my cage is 8' long x 3' wide x 2' high and my bird do knock them self's out when spooked

 

[PinkBee]

Hmm...if 10" is the minimum, I might want to try and add more space in case they do end up with 5" of deep litter. But, 2 feet is just too much, for the space I have, to also get 3 pens high. It would end up being 6-7 feet high and/or sitting on the floor (which randomly floods during our summer wet season.) Maybe I can add a few more inches and just have the bottom pen closer to the ground. Good thing I have time to figure this out!

Thanks for the replies/input. I appreciate them!