My Quail pen is almost ready and a question.

[Ravenlover]

Hello,

I recently was given 16 young Coturnix quail. I don't know how old they are but I was told they are about half-grown. They are not quite as big as the full-grown birds I have seen but almost. Anyway, I have been working hard on getting an outdoor aviary ready for them. I would have been ready before I picked them up but I thought I was getting 4 birds. I was ready for 4 birds.
So we built a big run for them. It is 5 X 10 feet and is made from a chain-link dog pen. We lined the entire thing with 1/2" hardware cloth. I am posting some pics for you to see. We looked into making one from wood but the price of wood is just crazy these days. We ran the hardware cloth under the pen and out 8" or so and then covered it with 12" square concrete pavers. They weigh 15 pounds each. We believe this will keep anything from digging under the fence. The small holes of the hardware cloth should keep the snakes out. We have a lot of snakes in the woods and we feel that beating the woods back from the homestead is a full-time job.
We even decided to use hardware cloth for the ceiling. A friend just used bird netting for theirs and an owl managed to tear a hole in it and get in during the night. It couldn't get back out but it killed many birds. Anyway, my question is this. I used some wire to 'seam' the sections of hardware cloth together on the ceiling of the pen. I did so as well on the walls but I was able to tie it on the outside so there are no sharp ends where the birds may get to them. On the ceiling, however, even though I tried to tuck the ends up through the mesh it does not want to stay and results in a hanging twist of wire in several places on the ceiling of the aviary. I have attached some photos showing the pen and wire twists in question. I would like to know if anyone thinks they are a hazard to the birds. If I really have to, remove them and try something different. I know they fly straight up when startled but I am not sure if they bounce up 6 feet high.
I have also included some photos of the door in case someone is interested in duplicating this pen. In order to block all access to snakes, I had to overlap hardware cloth on the inside of the gate opening. The gate opens outward and when closed is held against the overlapped sections. I also added a 1-foot hight section across the bottom of the gate that prevents birds from running out and prevents snakes from coming in. Hardware cloth could not be added to the gate end in the same way we added it to the other walls. We did put it on the inside to prevent raccoons from pulling it off. I still need to put the hardware cloth on the gate. It will be added to the outside of the gate and will only need to extend beyond the gate at the top since the bottom and sides have already been taken care of. The only place on this pen that has a hole bigger than 1/2" X 1/2" is right beside the gate latch and we had to leave some area free to allow the latch to move up and down freely.

Thank you for looking and for helping me decide if the wire twists are a hazard.

Deegie

Heads will go missing through those holes , legs too

 

[Deegie]

Again. there will be no holes bigger than 1/2 inch square as soon as I cover the gate. I guess I should have left that picture off since I have not finished the gate. I do appreciate you telling me though.

I am searching for J clips. I may have to order them online and put them on in a few days. They do seem to be a great solution to my problem. I didn't think the birds would flush that high but I hadn't really thought about my tall hubby. lol

I have yet to put anything inside for hides. My hubby put that one piece of plywood in for them to hide in/ run through. My future plans include a tarp to help keep off the rain on one end. A piece of roofing tin for the northernmost wall to block the wind. In the future, we will have more roofing tin and will make a tin roof to shed the rain. I plan to add at least one more section of plywood for a hiding tunnel, a sand bath area, and a hut made from a Rubbermaid bucket turned upside down that has one side cut out. It will be secured to the ground to keep it from blowing in the wind. Though we get very little wind here in the valley. If they like the hut, I may make another. As the grass grows taller they will be able to hide in it also.

Any other ideas are welcome.

 

[WallacetheKhakiCampbell]

Again. there will be no holes bigger than 1/2 inch square as soon as I cover the gate. I guess I should have left that picture off since I have not finished the gate. I do appreciate you telling me though.

I am searching for J clips. I may have to order them online and put them on in a few days. They do seem to be a great solution to my problem. I didn't think the birds would flush that high but I hadn't really thought about my tall hubby. lol

I have yet to put anything inside for hides. My hubby put that one piece of plywood in for them to hide in/ run through. My future plans include a tarp to help keep off the rain on one end. A piece of roofing tin for the northernmost wall to block the wind. In the future, we will have more roofing tin and will make a tin roof to shed the rain. I plan to add at least one more section of plywood for a hiding tunnel, a sand bath area, and a hut made from a Rubbermaid bucket turned upside down that has one side cut out. It will be secured to the ground to keep it from blowing in the wind. Though we get very little wind here in the valley. If they like the hut, I may make another. As the grass grows taller they will be able to hide in it also.

Any other ideas are welcome.

It sounds perfect to me! I even planted some honeysuckle adjacent to my aviary for more wind protection that looks cool too. Im slowly training it to cover an entire wall. I don't know if you have a lot of ivy where you are but it grows like crazy here and you can get it to grow over pretty much anything. Just an idea if you wanted more wind protection.

 

[ButtonHoarder]

It looks great! I really don’t think that they’ll hurt themselves on those.