I have a couple of quail questions!

[Silkiehen]

Y'all are great! Thank you so much. On to a totally different topic, should I put leg bands on my birds? I think they'd be eaiser to tell apart. And what age do they generally start to lose productivity?

 

[LoveInNature]

One poster described their dry hatch as no water until lockdown and it was at a natural 20% humidity during incubation - I have no experience with it myself however

, I had read the same conclusion you posted and perhaps even the same article before my first incubation too!!

Twinsies - haha.

I never knew about egg weight loss before it, incubator walkthroughs rarely get that deep

Unfortunately for the coturnix, they are I think the most experimented on bird. That makes for a lot of studies online from toxins (aww

) to cold tolerance of embryos.

One great thing for us keepers and our quail.

I have been experimenting with bedding types and have gone back to hay. I was finding that chaff, however great it is at reducing odour, tends to add to clumping on the birds feet. I have just spent quite a bit of time cleaning off my girls feet.

 

[Binki]

Y'all are great! Thank you so much. On to a totally different topic, should I put leg bands on my birds? I think they'd be eaiser to tell apart. And what age do they generally start to lose productivity?

Leg bands can be used with quail, their size is a bit smaller than a pigeon I believe - I was looking them up but decided against it just because it was a cost that I didn't need to incur, I don't have too many birds and am a kajillion times better at telling quail faces apart than people faces - lmao it's true!! It gets embarrassing sometimes when I don't recognize someone I've seen a hundred times.

Some consolation is that Jane Goodall goes through the same thing, but could easily tell apart hundreds of chimpanzees just from their faces

One great thing for us keepers and our quail.

I have been experimenting with bedding types and have gone back to hay. I was finding that chaff, however great it is at reducing odour, tends to add to clumping on the birds feet. I have just spent quite a bit of time cleaning off my girls feet.

I have no experience with chaff, in fact I had to look it up

I will say I prefer wood shavings over hay. Although they are similarly priced (huuuuge almost hay bale sized bag of compressed wood shavings at TSC for like $7 Canadian), the shavings win hands down for absorbency.

It REALLY cuts the feet cleaning down to nearly nil for me, but my cages are several feet long with only 4 or less birds in them since I've switched so there's a lot of places for them to poo and have it dry before someone steps there again.

I also noticed while the feet may have poop on them, the wood shavings have never stuck to it and it doesn't clump. The birds seem to take care of it themselves because I'll see one with a poopy foot it just mashed in a turd and yeah there's wood shavings in it too but it is like it dries it off to fall off the foot? Because then I will see them several hours later and the foot will be nearly all clean.

I used hay and it was leafy so it was more absorbent, then our last bales we could get were mostly hard husk that you guessed it, didn't absorb/help dry the poo which led to hard dried cementy mucky feet too often.

I even tried chopping it up into a couple inch bits so I could rake it/turn it once or more a day to help keep the wet poo out of the way of the birds feet. It's was very tedious, time consuming and only marginally more effective

I've also considered the wood pellets used for horse stalls but have yet to try them

 

[LoveInNature]

I even tried chopping it up into a couple inch bits so I could rake it/turn it once or more a day to help keep the wet poo out of the way of the birds feet. It's was very tedious, time consuming and only marginally more effective

I've also considered the wood pellets used for horse stalls but have yet to try them

You deserve 10 points for effort here. It must've taken you forever. I suppose putting it in a mixer wouldn't have worked either. To small and glue worthy particles.

I have chosen my next pen. The girls were happiest on grass so I am getting a pen which gives them over 1m square per bird. I am able to walk in and collect eggs and I can move it about to new areas of the yard.

I have bought them a perfect sand box and some shrubs for hiding in. All portable items.

I have my original 5, my 7 babies, 2 Goliath picked up on Saturday and 12 Goliath/Giant eggs being incubated from Saturday.

 

[carpe2day]

I have coturnix quail and I keep them on wire now. I tried 2 different pen setups and they did not work well. They were impossible to clean properly and they just leave their eggs everywhere.

I've read many places to use 1/4" hardware cloth floor. This is too small for the droppings to pass. I use 1/2" mesh on a very slight angle so the eggs roll to the front. I give them a board a couple of inches wide that goes across the cage to rest their feet. I take the board out and scrape it periodically.

Keep them off the ground so you can remove the droppings. Quail have the stinkiest poo ever!

They don't roost like chickens at night. So plan to cover them and protect them from predators. They appear to be like crack to predators. Even my placid great dane loves to inhale the intoxicating scent of quail.

I have great success using dog crates. I wrap them in hardware cloth and wire tie a raised hardware cloth floor with enough room to remove the plastic tray. I "tractor" the quail around the grass during the daytime. At night I slip the tray under the raised floor and bring them into my garage for protection. They are squares of dark green lush growth after the quail are set somewhere for a day. You can keep a covey group in each cage and the males won't fight. I have to crack the door to collect eggs and that is not ideal. You can wire it so the eggs roll through to a collection trough.

One thing I learned was to use water bottles ASAP. They yuck up their water faster than I thought was possible. I found choco nose nozzles do not drip and a replace the bottle with a larger bottle. I use the $3 Walmart bottle with the $13. choco nose nozzle.

Good luck! I adore my quail.

 

[JaeG]

My 2 year old girls are still laying daily but I let them have a natural break over winter so that's probably helped extend their productivity. Fertility does drop dramatically after a year old if you are wanting to hatch any eggs from them.

 

[Silkiehen]

You have to try the pellets. I love them! I was hesitant at first but it's so much easier to clean in my big brooder and I almost never saw poop on them(even when I had close to 200 in there, including 8 turkey poults). It seems to absorb really quick. It's my go to for brooding.

Leg bands can be used with quail, their size is a bit smaller than a pigeon I believe - I was looking them up but decided against it just because it was a cost that I didn't need to incur, I don't have too many birds and am a kajillion times better at telling quail faces apart than people faces - lmao it's true!! It gets embarrassing sometimes when I don't recognize someone I've seen a hundred times.

Some consolation is that Jane Goodall goes through the same thing, but could easily tell apart hundreds of chimpanzees just from their faces

I have no experience with chaff, in fact I had to look it up

I will say I prefer wood shavings over hay. Although they are similarly priced (huuuuge almost hay bale sized bag of compressed wood shavings at TSC for like $7 Canadian), the shavings win hands down for absorbency.

It REALLY cuts the feet cleaning down to nearly nil for me, but my cages are several feet long with only 4 or less birds in them since I've switched so there's a lot of places for them to poo and have it dry before someone steps there again.

I also noticed while the feet may have poop on them, the wood shavings have never stuck to it and it doesn't clump. The birds seem to take care of it themselves because I'll see one with a poopy foot it just mashed in a turd and yeah there's wood shavings in it too but it is like it dries it off to fall off the foot? Because then I will see them several hours later and the foot will be nearly all clean.

I used hay and it was leafy so it was more absorbent, then our last bales we could get were mostly hard husk that you guessed it, didn't absorb/help dry the poo which led to hard dried cementy mucky feet too often.

I even tried chopping it up into a couple inch bits so I could rake it/turn it once or more a day to help keep the wet poo out of the way of the birds feet. It's was very tedious, time consuming and only marginally more effective

I've also considered the wood pellets used for horse stalls but have yet to try them

 

[Silkiehen]

I was going to try to do an automatic water system with either the nipples or the cups. Which would be better or does it matter? I worry about the nipples constantly dripping but the cups might be too hard for the little quail too figure out. Decisionso decisions.

I have coturnix quail and I keep them on wire now. I tried 2 different pen setups and they did not work well. They were impossible to clean properly and they just leave their eggs everywhere. 

I've read many places to use 1/4" hardware cloth floor. This is too small for the droppings to pass. I use 1/2" mesh on a very slight angle so the eggs roll to the front. I give them a board a couple of inches wide that goes across the cage to rest their feet. I take the board out and scrape it periodically. 

Keep them off the ground so you can remove the droppings. Quail have the stinkiest poo ever!

They don't roost like chickens at night. So plan to cover them and protect them from predators. They appear to be like crack to predators. Even my placid great dane loves to inhale the intoxicating scent of quail.   

I have great success using dog crates. I wrap them in hardware cloth and wire tie a raised hardware cloth floor with enough room to remove the plastic tray. I "tractor" the quail around the grass during the daytime. At night I slip the tray under the raised floor and bring them into my garage for protection. They are squares of dark green lush growth after the quail are set somewhere for a day. You can keep a covey group in each cage and the males won't fight. I have to crack the door to collect eggs and that is not ideal. You can wire it so the eggs roll through to a collection trough.  

One thing I learned was to use water bottles ASAP. They yuck up their water faster than I thought was possible. I found choco nose nozzles do not drip and a replace the bottle with a larger bottle. I use the $3 Walmart bottle with the $13. choco nose nozzle. 

Good luck! I adore my quail. 

 

[Silkiehen]

I planned on hatching eggs, selling and of course eating. Would one that's a year old be too tough?

My 2 year old girls are still laying daily but I let them have a natural break over winter so that's probably helped extend their productivity.  Fertility does drop dramatically after a year old if you are wanting to hatch any eggs from them. 

 

[JaeG]

I planned on hatching eggs, selling and of course eating. Would one that's a year old be too tough?

I have no experience eating quail. I'd like to but we only hatch a few at a time and our daughter can't even consider eating spare boys as she loves them all - they get donated to the local pet shop.