Keeping my quail inside

[caseymacom]

1st I dont work (stay at home mom of 6) so I have plenty of time for cleaning my cage, I love hearing them sing and think they are adorable, and want them to lay year round. I have a cage my hubby built and I was wondering if it looks big enough and the set up is good. I havent ever mept quail inside my cage is large 4 foot long 6 foot high and 3 foot wide with a tree inside, I have 12 baby quail that I incubated. Is there anything I should add or change? Im trying to add a photo.

 

[caseymacom]

 

[DK newbie]

First of all, what species of quail?
I'm assuming coturnix since that seems to be the most common. In that case, the minimum space recommendation i 1 square foot per bird, but more is always better - and you should never keep more than one male above ~6 weeks of age in a cage that has females. So assuming you have 6 boys and 6 girls, with your cage being 12 sqft you could keep one male and all the girls in there and place extra males in a different cage, eat them or sell them. I say could - but if those quail really are coturnix, according to what I've read the smell - and amount of dust - is very likely to make you reconsider very soon - and the more birds you have, the worse.
As I see it, the main issue with the cage (apart from being inside) will be egg collection. It looks like the whole front opens? That will definitely make it possible to collect the eggs from all corners, but you might have birds all over the house by the time you finish. If they are tame, they might be easy to catch but having to catch 7 birds every day might become rather annoying. Some smaller doors at the ends might be better, but as the cage is both deep and long they could lay eggs in hard-to-reach positions. You can reduce that by making all hard-to-reach positions appear very open and giving them cover in the places where you want them to lay.
You can make the birds lay all year by giving them 14-16 hours of artificial light a day, even if they are outside.

 

[pkhunter]

You have 12 sq. feet so plenty of room for 12 birds. Only problem may be that you will have to many rooster. I assume that you want these for pets and eggs, if so I would cull all the roosters maybe keep 1 or 2 if you want to hatch some more later. If you get to many roosters in there they will kill each other. Most of my hatches are about 50/50 hens and roosters, if so you will have to decide what you want to do with the extras. You can probably keep them together till around 6 weeks with out to many problems.

 

[caseymacom]

Thanks for the advice, they are coturnix,they are 2 weeks old now, any suggestions on how I can tell the males from the females? Considering the smell and dust I may consider just keeping a couple in the house for pets? Just weighing all the options on it right now.

 

[caseymacom]

this is the babies right now

 

[DK newbie]

Doesn't look like you have a single one that can be feather sexed. In this case, you'll need to wait for them to mature (somewhere between 5 and 8 weeks) at which point the males begin to produce foam which can be seen when squeezing below their vent (search for vent sexing), crow and mate the females (and other males), and the females might begin to lay eggs. It'll probably take a while to get the sexes sorted out - sometimes people vent sex and separate the birds in male and female cages, only to have eggs showing up in the male cage. In this case, a male has usually mated the female just before the vent sexing, thereby transferring some of his foam to the female making it hard to tell the difference.

 

[crimsonmama]

Thanks for the advice, they are coturnix,they are 2 weeks old now, any suggestions on how I can tell the males from the females? Considering the smell and dust I may consider just keeping a couple in the house for pets? Just weighing all the options on it right now.

Super cool!! I got two week olds too! And three day olds that mama hatched. And daddy quail who sadly has to live by himself at the moment but is next to my two week olds so they can get used to each other. So he's not lonely anymore! Which he was when mama brooded her eggs and kicked him out!

Anyways all of mine are currently indoors. Mama and her chicks are in my bedroom on newspaper on the floor. No roof or cage sides cordoned off but mama can jump over. She chooses not to. They do have a new aviary coming tomorrow as I know the chicks will start jumping and exploring soon! I will probably set it up in my bedroom too for the moment as daddy and the older chicks are already in my living room. Anyways, I don't notice bad smell. I add play sand to their pens which a) they love to bathe in and b) I find it soaks up their mess so it's dry quickly and it only smells when fresh and wet. I clean my older chicks out daily though. With nine of them it gets messy quick. My adults only need once or twice a week.

I love having them indoors too as they are fun to watch and yes I agree they make cute noises! Esp mama with her chicks right now. I was thinking of putting them out in summer and bringing them in rest of the year? I'm in UK so our summer is pretty short. But I will enjoy sitting in the garden watching them when the sun is shining!
I'm planning on keeping ten quail. That means I have to sell eight of my chicks.