How easily can quail be left for a few days?

[HEChicken]

Whenever one of the kids or I suggests we bring a new animal or animal type into the fold, my husband's first objection is: "But what about when we need to go away for a few days?" We don't go away often, but sometimes take a week to 10-day vacation in the summer, or go away for a 3-4 day weekend at some other point in the year. For the shorter trips, we can leave out enough food/water for the cat and chooks but the dog is a pet we have to either board or find someone to care for. You get the gist. So I know if I tell my husband I'd like to "get a few quail", the first thing he will ask me is "what about vacations?" I want to be prepared with an answer. My plan is to keep the quail indoors (basement) in a huge old rabbit cage that hasn't been in use for years. After doing a lot of research on this forum, I think I can make this into a great little habitat for them. I'm not too concerned about odor since it is an unfinished basement that we really only use for storage anyway. The basement has view out windows and for most of the year we can leave a window cracked for ventilation which will also cut down on odor. What I don't know is: can I leave a gravity feeder full of feed and another full of water (as I do for the chooks and the cat) and just leave them for a few days? Or do they require such daily care that that would be an impossibility?

 

[Robo]

As long as they have food and fresh water they should be fine. There is a thread somewhere on here about a chick feeder with a pvc pipe on it. If you made the pipe large enough it would work very well. As for a waterer they even sell 3 gallon ones so I think you would be fine there. If you had to you could make an auto waterer. When I go away for a few days I put an extra feeder and waterer in the cages. For my chickens I use a deer feeder so I never have to feed them until it runs out. I don't have an auto waterer for chickens because they are not in my shed and the hoses would freeze.

 

[PoultryParadise]

Sounds like a familiar tone in my house. We always have to hire someone to care for the pigs usually a neighbor in exchange for eggs and a slab of bacon, and the indoor pets go up to my parents house. Scince I now have button quail in the house, and hopefully plan on bringing in some of the new coturnix for breeding, he is asking me all the time what we will do when we go away for the odd week-end. I am looking into see if the quail will drink from waterers like others have found luck with. This will work for an over night or perhaps a week-end. Anything longer and we will end up asking the neighbor to come into the house too.