My Chicks all Died

[NatJ]

Just a follow up question for one of the posters (@Diana102) or anyone else who wants to answer; what makes quail harder to raise than chickens?

No quail experience, but I wonder how much is just due to the size.

Being so small, they have less body mass to help regulate heat, and walking just a few inches back to the heat source takes them a lot more steps than for bigger chicks.

Being small also means less size/fat/resources to get them through an extra day or even few hours of learning how to eat and drink.

Being so small, they cannot reach some food/water dishes, and even the chick-sized waterers are plenty big enough to drown quail. If you try to use a bottle cap for water, you may solve the downing problem but then it evaporates really quickly and they go thirsty.

Also, chicken food is pretty easy to get, but the quail need a higher protein, so getting the right food is harder. And it needs to be in really tiny pieces, too.

Yes, I know there are solutions for all of these things. But the more things you have to solve, the harder it is to raise that kind of bird. And they're so small, they have less resources to survive the time it takes to recognize a problem and find a solution.

Those are my guesses (They are also some of the reasons I have not yet tried raising quail myself )

 

[AllieMac]

Also when I feed them water they act like its the end of the world if they don't drink it but when given they chick waterer they refrain from getting 3cm from it

Sounds like your waterer does not work for your birds. How about use a standard waterer next time.

 

[Cluckie 2]

I have a very strange and interesting problem that may be hard for y'all country folk to understand. I live in Manhattan new york in a small apartment and I decided to raise quails as pets!?!? I have provided them with a reasonable 6ft by 2ft Brooder. their water supply is always accessible though they don't seem to drink it, To solve this I drop fed them water every hour. Their food supplies are made up of A few live Crickets, Dried mealworms, and Wagner's wild bird feed (The mealworms and seed are ground together) they seemed to be happy until one by one they all died over a 2 week period. their water supplies had a few vitamins to keep them in shape and they never showed signs of being too cold or too hot I can't seem to find a reason for there death...

(Forgive misspells and grammar issue I'm Scottish English is my second language)

(I will respond to as many responses as possible)
(I speak Scottish Gaelic and recently learned English I know English is spoken in Scotland)

I am so sorry of your loss... And please don't apologize for your choice of pet.. Whatever makes your heart full

 

[Geena]

Quail do not need to be confined with heat for 2 months. They're able to go out in mild weather at 5 weeks

Most definetly not, heck at two months I'm getting ready to put them in the freezer, lol.

 

[Geena]

Just a follow up question for one of the posters (@Diana102) or anyone else who wants to answer; what makes quail harder to raise than chickens?

In my experience they aren't any harder to raise, maybe easier, they are tough little birds. They do have slightly different requirements than chickens.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Just a follow up question for one of the posters (@Diana102) or anyone else who wants to answer; what makes quail harder to raise than chickens?

In my experiemce, the amount of protein they needed was the hardest part since I am not able to buy small quantities of feed with enough protein so I had to make my own for a bit more than a month

 

[Diana102]

I have heard they are harder to raise by several sources (both friends and fowl experts) but I have no experience with quail personally. If I'm not mistaken, chickens have been domesticated for a very long time but quail have not so they retain more wildness therefore aren't as adaptable to captivity.

 

[Geena]

I have heard they are harder to raise by several sources (both friends and fowl experts) but I have no experience with quail personally. If I'm not mistaken, chickens have been domesticated for a very long time but quail have not so they retain more wildness therefore aren't as adaptable to captivity.

IIRC, Coturnix have been raised in captivity for over 1,000 years.

 

[Kiki]

I have heard they are harder to raise by several sources (both friends and fowl experts) but I have no experience with quail personally. If I'm not mistaken, chickens have been domesticated for a very long time but quail have not so they retain more wildness therefore aren't as adaptable to captivity.

I am an expert quail raiser.
They are NOT harder to raise than chickens.

 

[moxiemom6]

I will not have another thread where some others are talking about how I need to change my food!! I also need to learn how to get them to drink out of the waterer thank you!

I have chcikens. One of the things that is noted as very important is to dip their beaks into water as you put them into the brooder. The idea is to watch that they take a drink after the dip (not dunk) to the water. Lack of water will kill them. I don't know about quail specifically but I do question not using a commercial feed.
Sorry that it was not a good experience