Indoor quail pen - is this a crazy idea?

[Mhays]

I would remove buttons from the equation if your plan is raising them for either meat or eggs.

If you want them for meat and eggs I assume you will be incubating some of the eggs to hatch new quail eventually? If so you will need to keep a male with the females so you'll have fertile eggs.

Coturnix quail cannot be kept in pairs. They need to be kept in a 1:4 or 1:5 ratio of males to females. The general minimum recommended space requirement for coturnix is 1 sq ft per bird. So the 9sq ft size would hold 5 or 6 quail without crowding them.

My biggest concern, especially if keeping them inside my house, is how quickly 5 or 6 quail would soil the bedding and how often it would need to be changed. I keep all my quail outdoors on wire floors so hopefully someone else will chime in who keeps them on the ground in a relatively confined space can answer that question.

We're used to changing bedding with the Degus we have - I plan to rig a wire over pan system so it's just a matter of sliding out a pan and changing the liner...but I will probably put wood shavings or shredded paper just so they have something to peck at that's not wire.

 

[Mhays]

I keep buttons and chicks indoors, but buttons are tiny and don't make too much mess, and chicks get booted out as soon as possible. They make a lot of dust, and if you have allergies or any sort of respiratory issue, the birds will make them worse.

9 square feet for 3-4 birds isn't unreasonable, but you will probably be cleaning it every day in an indoor environment if you don't want it to stink you out of the house.

Again, Degus dust bathe...so we're used to that!

 

[nao57]

You know a lot of the quail cages on Youtube look like they aren't really doing bedding like other fowl.

 

[StephenQuailCovey]

The 0303 may suit your purposes. I’m considering the 0315 for my large, unfinished basement.

https://poultrysupplies.com/index_files/Page377.htm

 

[danielb1990]

My 2 have an indoor per of an old garden winter thing for growing plants 1mx1m they been living in it last 2 years in genral no issues with them but whole room gets covered in dust layer from there dust and when they poop room smells abit for few hours if smelly poop but normally some fabreeze or similar fixes it

 

[Mhays]

My 2 have an indoor per of an old garden winter thing for growing plants 1mx1m they been living in it last 2 years in genral no issues with them but whole room gets covered in dust layer from there dust and when they poop room smells abit for few hours if smelly poop but normally some fabreeze or similar fixes it

 

[Mhays]

Cool! Can you send a picture?

 

[danielb1990]

ignore the mess as took these this morning and they just pooped +knocked over stuff etc lol
Floor was a large sheet of cabord from the enclosures box with cat litter (the wood pellet sort) and dust (generic industrial stuff normally used as filler but is same stuff as chinchilla sand) and then each winter layer of straw etc
2 water bottles 1 behind the patition (since adding that seems less fights and calmer as one side stays darker) 2 food trays
also there old heat pad is in there as a housing area they sometimes use plus when cold i turn it on incase then every few days change water scoop eggs out change flooring abit (they seem only poop/lay in one area so most changes for me not huge)

Cool! Can you send a picture?

 

[danielb1990]

The 2 them lived in there since hatching and seem happy enough although early days did jump out ealy mornings and wander the house/living room but that probally more curious of surroundings then unhappy lol lived in there 2 years now with only minor changing of layouts when they fight or move water /cleear out layers etc

They also havent seemed to gotton sick over the 2 years (includng bugs/mites)

 

[Fenrisulfr]

I don't know the space you got or your tooling skills, but did you thought about something like a modified shelf with two floors? Kind of vertical farming.

Something like that:

Wood ground is covered with PVC for durability and better cleaning.

Screen is mixed grattings and acrylic glas (low) for better viewing and keeping scrapings more in the hutch.

The departments on the left are completely covered with acrylic glas, because there will be the sand baths, keeping the sand in the hutch.

Both floors are connected with a ramp on the right.

I also love the idea of the wood wallpaper on the backscreen.

Lower closets are for food, scrapings and stuff.

Saw this recently and the concept is really interesting for an indoor solution.
In doubt of the ramp, you can keep two seperate floors, with two smaller flocks.