Quail and Chickens together in an aviary "Okay"?

[Mountain Wampus]

Greetings!

I ended up w 7 quail chicks from the Lachute Livestock Auction this tuesday. I'm not sure quite how I ended up w them, I think my Molsen Dry snuck a bid in there on me!

I keep chickens and a couple ducks however... I built a very large Aviary that they get to run around in, plenty of room for 7 lil quail in there but I have a question that this forum can probably best answer for me please.

Is it "okay" to let them live together? I don't tolerate bullying in the flock so thats a non issue.

2cd part of the question, how old should quail be before you can harvest them? ( assuming answer to 1st part is "you can't keep them together" )

thank you,
Mountain Wampus~

 

[gamebirdsonly]

I wouldn't put them together. I have had pheasants and also chukars with chickens before and the chickens killed the chukar and kept attacking the pheasants and with quail being so small it wouldn' take much for the chickens to kill them.

what kind of quail do you have?

 

[Quailsong]

Biosecurity aside (I assume they're safe from diseases, grew up w/ mixed flocks in the area, etc), I would be worried about the chickens & ducks dominating quail. Ducks alone are normally 'bullies'. They like to play a lot, drag young chicks (regardless of species) into the water with them; possibly causing drowning.

If it was my pen, I just wouldn't do it. Esp not with the ducks. I would make more pens (appropriate to the species) or find new homes for the extras.

As gamebirdsonly asks, what type of quail are they? Japanese Coturnix (or Jumbos) may be fine with small chickens, but the smaller ones (buttons/gambels/etc) will have big issues.

 

[Mountain Wampus]

These are the 7 lil ones in with some friendly, like sized RIR chicks. I don't know what kind they are and didn't mean to buy them. The Auctioneer primarily speaks in french so from time to time my lack of french lands me some interesting buys! lol Wonderful Auction out @ Lachute, great people. If anyone wants them and is all set up for them I'll sell them, otherwise they'll just get an aviary w friendly birds. ( I'll build a pen or eat a bird before I allow bullying )

My coop will split into different pens, the outside aviary is big and encloses the coop to allow tons of shade and cover. I can split that into 2 aviaries atm w/a tiny gate. I'm working best I can to finish enclosing .. most of my back yard.. w carpenters cloth fencing on cut birch fence posts I made. That area has a small hand dug creek and pond for the ducks, they proved week one that they have more self respect than to share with chickens! lol So yes, they get their own area and coop.

At worst they'll get a grossly oversized aviary to live in sharing w chicks or whoever won't pick on them.

 

[James the Bald]

Here is a link for one reason why I wouldn't keep chickens and quail together. Coryza is a respiratory disease that chickens carry that is fatal to quail. Chickens are carriers of this disease, and you may not know they are infected until the quail start showing signs. There are some who say that they've done it without any problems and will encourage you to do it as well, but why take the risk? If it were to infect you, would you still keep chickens and quail?
And for the record, this gentleman didn't keep his quail and chickens together... they were kept 3 feet apart. The disease was transmitted through a pair of gloves after handling both chickens and quail.
$2.52

 

[Quailsong]

Like James says, coryza is an issue you'll have to be careful of. Especially I would say, if you bring in chickens from an auction or market. You may not know the reputation of the sellers or if the birds picked up anything from even a visitor who has sick chickens. With that, I would agree with James.

If however the quail have been raised with chickens & the seller is reputable (I assume you could phone if needed) then yeah, I would encourage that. It's of course up to you what you do & what risks & research you're willing to take.

Edit: James, I'd like to add that your quoting the money you 'make' every time someone asks if chickens & quail can be kept together is rather rude when it concerns health. I don't know why you find pleasure in such fear-mongering. I get that you want to caution others against coryza from unhealthy chicken keepers, which is fine as you've somewhat toned down lately, but really must you spread fear & laugh at people for choosing to do something that you don't approve of? Can't we focus more on positive outcomes?

 

[Weirdness555]

Just to add my bit, we got our current Japanese quail cockerel from someone who tried to keep him and his mate in with chickens, I gather than within a couple of days the chickens had killed his mate and severely injured him, the owner nursed him back to health and then gave him to us.

I know you say you don't allow bullying, and I'm not saying that you would just ignore any kind of action, but I would be worried just because quail are so small, I'm pretty sure that just one or two good pecks to the head could kill them, and you have to ask yourself how quickly could you get in to help? What if something kicked off while you were out?

Obviously you know more about your system than I do, and if you're confident that none of this would be an issue (and I'm not implying that you're wrong, I'm just adding my thoughts, if it were me) then you may as well try it.

I personally would worry too much about loosing a bird, but that's just me.

Good luck with them!

 

[Mountain Wampus]

Thank you friends,

I was sure there was some good reason not to keep them. Like I said the Molson and low bid at the auction is to blame!

They are for sale or trade. 7 of them. Cash, quacker, or clucker please. Think I paid $17.50 for em all. They are flyin fools, vibrant and active, clean and healthy.

thanks again for the help folks,
Mountain Wampus