Losing some quail the first day

[Kaybear1950]

I use 30% turkey starter and I also add electrolytes to the water. 24% chick starter is generally accepted as the lowest protien you want to use. I typically lose 1-3 out of a hundred in the first day or two. Usually they're the last ones that hatched (smallest birds in the brooder) or ones that I assisted to hatch.....

That brooder is a tad on the small side. You're going to need second one for sure once the get bigger anyway. I use 55-gallon totes from home Depot. They are roughly 4ft x 20in and make excellent brooders. Here's a link to them....
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/diy-storage-tote-quail-chick-brooder.1247747/

Thank you! I lost 6 more last night. All looked like trampling. Setting up a second brooder tote today to pick out the small ones. I have some quail that look really big and some that look terribly small in comparison. I'm not sure if they were different hatch batches but it appears that way. If I can get the last 96 to survive I feel like that's a good number. I will likely have too many males and have to ratio them out. I'm hoping to at least end of with 40 females but a higher number would be amazing.

 

[Halfpasthen]

I bought 103 quail and just got them today. 3 have passed already. Brooder is varying 94-100 Fahrenheit. I used chicken starter with 20% protein ground up and regular tap water. Heat lamp is on one side and I am using paper towel with some wood chips as flooring. Is this a normal loss or is something wrong with my set up?

This seems incredibly hot without any way to escape it.

 

[Ratchnick]

Normaly in a brooder you need a larger heat gradient then 4 degrees. Like one end should be 20 degrees colder.

 

[mdees88]

Normaly in a brooder you need a larger heat gradient then 4 degrees. Like one end should be 20 degrees colder.

This is why I use the very large 4ftx20in totes from home depot. The hot end is kept at 100 or even 105 to be safe in case of large room temp fluctuations. The cold end is 3+ft away from the heat source and is usually around 80 degrees. The quail run around the entire brooder but when they sleep they position themselves exactly where they're most comfortable which is near the hot end but not directly under the heat source....