how much manure do quails produce?

[alexanderwaugh]

Im trying to find out how many quails i need to get to try and fertilize my garden with their manure.

Does anyone know how much manure on average does your typical quail produce?

thanks. Alex

 

[Em Ty]

It would help if you told us a bit about your garden, it's size, if you compost, how many quail you think you'd like to have, etc.

One quail doesn't produce much. Many quail do. A lot will depend on how to plan to use it. It's not a good idea to use raw poultry manure for gardening; you're much better off composting it somehow.

I've got 40ish quail right now and they give me a decent amount of manure, but nothing I can use by itself for traditional composting. I've also got 8 chickens and 3ish rabbits. The rabbit trays use shavings to capture the urine. I am using bedding for most of the quail, but just a tray for 3 of them. As a very rough estimate (as I don't separate these things out) I think I get around 4-5 gallons of fouled shavings a week. It would take a long time to build up enough for a cubic yard to compost in a pile.

I currently have a compost pile I built that was 5'x5'x6' that was made with the chicken coop deep litter (24 cubic feet) and the compost pile from last fall that over-wintered. I also added about a garbage bag full of the quail and rabbit waste. It's cooking along at over 140* after a week and a half. I hope to get it to finish in the next 4 weeks, but I'll probably have to turn it again.

I'm also trying vermicomposting (with worms) for my quail and rabbit bedding. The issue there is that the worms can't handle raw manure either, so I fill up 68 litre totes (you do the math), wet them down and then let them age for a few weeks. When the ammonia smell isn't very strong, I put the worms in. Worms that are born in that environment will be better at processing that waste. That would be the fastest way to compost in small quantities. You can help the worms out by layering small pieces of cardboard with the quail waste, but you'll still have to age the poop. You'll also have to mix the poop with some sawdust or shavings, the finer the better, though you may be able to just mix it in with <1" pieces of corrugated cardboard if you don't have many quail.

 

[cmobley]

I had 7 it usually took a little over a month to get a full 5 gallon bucket full. I had a sheet of plywood under their cage i could rake it off afyer it sat and dried a week or so. I just put some out on my garden this morning and its flooding now my tomatoe plants will grow 3 feet tonight lol.