plants for aviary

[shimzilla]

Hi, trying to find the right plants is driving me nuts everything is contradicting!, so my aviary is 6ft high, 3ft wide and 6ft long, I have 2 Californian quail going in there, Whats do you suggest a plant for good shelter for them to roost in, conifer? any 6ft kind of dogwood?, also in the wild they would feed on lupinus albifrons, but to other sites it says its poisonous to them, any opinions? I do plan to put some tufty grasses for them to make a nest out of. most sites when I look about quails is either for ground nesting quails or pheaseants with larger aviarys :S any help would be greatly appreciated

 

[Ntsees]

They can roost in whatever you give them, but they prefer something bushy for comfort. If your aviary is 6 feet high, then try giving them a bush or small bushy tree about 5 feet high. Dogwood isn't bushy enough but use it if you like it. I'm leaning more towards using a conifer/christmas tree. No need to concern yourself with lupine (Lupinus albifrons). They sure will eat the seeds, but if they dislike eating the leaves, then they won't eat it.

 

[TwoCrows]

I used to use live stuff and tried planting things in the aviaries at first. But the watering situation was making a lot of mud and I like to keep my aviaries covered. Then I was cutting trees and branches and loading them in the aviaries but they soon dried out and I was spending more time hauling and cutting than just enjoying it all.

Then I started to see I was bringing in leg scale mites...UGH...so I switched to fake trees. Christmas trees to be exact. Let me see if have a good picture in this pc to give you an idea...

I find this to be so easy, no messy pine needles, watering, mites and such. You can get some cheap trees around Christmas time at discount stores.

Quail are fond of many grasses and once in a while I will buy a potted grass like Bermuda or something for them to eat. But I did find that using alfalfa hay as litter on the floors or even Bermuda grass hay as in this picture, they enjoy picking around in it looking for seeds and eating tiny leaves and grasses. They LOVE to make nests out of grass hay. Here is a huge ordeal a pair made one year in the corner. It stood about 2 feet tall and there was a hen in there at the time I took this picture...