Newbie raising quail in east Texas

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EastTex

EastTex

In the Brooder
Jul 21, 2017
16
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I'm new to BYC as a member, but I've been reading the forums for a while. I have two dozen quail in an outside coop. I'm currently debating which nipple style is the best and whether to try DL in my pen. I have fire ants and cats and hawks, Oh my! So there are lots of challenges to balance around here. Currently I move my pen around the yard, but I have a plan for a permanent fixture. I keep my birds' wings clipped so they can't fly much more than a hop. And I have tried fencing an area of my garden and letting them mess about in it. It sort of works, but I am always watching them the whole time beacause of the predators issue. Getting them all back into their coop is....an interesting excercise. But I like being able to put them in my garden for bug control and cuz it gives them some stimulation.
 
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Hello there and welcome to BYC!

So glad you could join our community! I keep quail too. What breed of quail are you keeping, Coturnix? I keep bobwhites. Quail are quite fun to keep, much different from chickens.

We have fire ants too. Be very careful as 1 bite will kill a quail. It causes them to go into anaphylactic shock. I lost my best male one year from a fire ant bite and after that, it was all out war on all mounds anywhere NEAR the quail avaries! If one does bite one of your birds, use rubbing alcohol on the bite every hour for a several hours to help break down the poison.

I clicker train my quail to get into their coop fron the aviary. They can be trained, although some days they don't feel like listening to me. Ha!

Enjoy your quail adventures! Stop by our Quail forums too and welcome to our roost!! :)
 
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TwoCrows said:
Hello there and welcome to BYC!

So glad you could join our community! I keep quail too. What breed of quail are you keeping, Coturnix? I keep bobwhites. Quail are quite fun to keep, much different from chickens.

We have fire ants too. Be very careful as 1 bite will kill a quail. It causes them to go into anaphylactic shock. I lost my best male one year from a fire ant bite and after that, it was all out war on all mounds anywhere NEAR the quail avaries! If one does bite one of your birds, use rubbing alcohol on the bite every hour for a several hours to help break down the poison.

I clicker train my quail to get into their coop fron the aviary. They can be trained, although some days they don't feel like listening to me. Ha!

Enjoy your quail adventures! Stop by our Quail forums too and welcome to our roost!! :)
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I would like to hear how you clicker trained your birds! That would be very good knowledge.

About fire ants: I have used MSM cream on the bites with really good results. Never tried alcohol. I will give it a shot. Man, I hate those guys. They are the only insect I know that will bite the tar out of you just because they're On you. Everything else is peaceful unless startled. Little turds.
 
EastTex said:
I would like to hear how you clicker trained your birds! That would be very good knowledge.

About fire ants: I have used MSM cream on the bites with really good results. Never tried alcohol. I will give it a shot. Man, I hate those guys. They are the only insect I know that will bite the tar out of you just because they're On you. Everything else is peaceful unless startled. Little turds.
Click to expand...

Yes, fire ants are nasty little insects! I am still not sure what use they are to the planet. LOL I have been stung about 10 times. Each time it effects my body in a worse way. If I don't treat the bite immediately, I get fevered and nauseated. Just awful stinkers!! I have never tried MSM cream. I will have to stock up on some!

As for clicker training, what I did was put some really tasty treats in their hutch/coop, got my trusty "quail net" out, (they hate that net, LOL) and while holding the net, clicking the dog clicker, I used the command, "get into the coop". At first all they really saw was the net, but once they learned that all I asked of them was to march up the ramp and into the coop, and of course there was a tasty treat at the end of this ordeal, LOL, they soon learned that the clicking noise and my command meant to get into the coop. I actually decided to do this after one day, my first year of keeping quail, a Rock Rattler got into the aviary. I didn't want them to get bitten or eaten and I couldn't watch them and avoid the snake at the same time! I needed a way to round up 20 quail if there was some sort of emergency. The clicker training was the best thing I ever did! Quail are very smart if you give them the opportunity. Work with yours now and by fall they will get where you want them very easily. :)
 
This is wonderful! I have had the same "Oh no!" Moment and wished fervently they would all magically go into their coop/box. But, sadly, you know they didn't have the brains for that. I'm so going to try this! MSM cream is on amazon or at some crunchier drug/health food stores. I was super skeptical at first because the cortisone cream is a joke that only helps for like 15 mins tops. But I put that stuff on my bites and didn't feel any itching for TWELVE HOURS! I was amazed! So, I used it on one of my quail and she seemed fine too. I dunno what that stuff is, but a friend turned me on to it and I was hooked!
 
Thanks for the info on the MSM cream! I am going to look into it. I am riddled with all kinds of allergies along with being bitten by things, LOL, I can use all the help I can get! Ha!

Quail can be stubborn too and usually have no interest in doing what YOU want, only doing what THEY want WHEN they want!! But keep working on them. I can't remember the time line in their learning, but eventually they did learn and never forgot. :)
 
Welcome! I keep Texas A&M and have found that the bottle water caps work better for me with quail than the waterer nipples. With the nipples, the ground under the coop stayed wet from the overflow when quail pecked at the nipples...this resulted in stronger odors, more flies, etc. With the bottle water caps, there is no overflow and everything stays dry...much more pleasant! I put 4 or 5 2-liter bottles to a pen and only need to refill about 1x week. Hope that helps!
 

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