Quail bedding or wire?

[catesquire]

I was eyeing that in the store and wondering why I'd never heard of someone using it! Good to know it's holding up. Is your cage indoors or outdoors? Does it seem like it would hold up to predators?

 

[Creede]

As far as wire…

I use 1/2 inch hard plastic mesh with zip ties holding it onto the frame. Not plastic coated wire, all plastic.

I’m only a little past a year into this, but so far no foot issues and the mesh is holding up fine in MN weather.

It can sag a bit with a gallon waterer, but through trial and error… that means you didn’t use enough zip ties… like every 8 inches on the mesh.

I bought my mesh at Menards in person but I’m pretty sure you could buy the same online?

The weather there gets really cold too, right?

 

[DJ_Quail]

The weather there gets really cold too, right?

My coop/cage is outside in an area sheltered by a privacy fence. And yes, it gets very cold in MN. In a winter here, it’s pretty much expected that we’ll have some days where the high temp is below zero. And some overnight lows of -20, or -25 Fahrenheit.

As far as predators… my birds are off the ground. I’ve had the cage out there for 15 months and haven’t lost any birds to predators.

But maybe I’m just lucky. If a hungry raccoon came some night, it might be agile enough to hang onto the mesh for however long it took him to chew through it. But it wouldn’t be an easy task!

 

[DJ_Quail]

I don’t underestimate a hungry predator, and what they can do!

A while back I had bobwhite quail in a cage in a suburb of Minneapolis, Fridley.

I came home to find 6 of them missing their heads and necks… and 6 full bodies inside of the cage… and many feathers at the scene of the crime.

This was a cage with the type of wire mesh with holes a little bit bigger than a quails head.

So I was picturing that something scared the hell out of them, where they panicked, trying to escape, and the ones that couldn’t get their head loose from the wire mesh… were the 6 that were dead.

I set a Havahart trap, a live trap… and put two of the quail bodies in it for bait.

The next morning I weighed the trap with the raccoon that was in it.

The trap and angry raccoon in it weighed 42 lbs. I don’t know if the trap weighed 3 lbs. or 5 or 10 lbs…. But there was a big assed raccoon in the trap!

 

[Creede]

That is a huge raccoon! As I was reading the story, raccoon was the primary suspect. I've heard of stories where they just reach in and pop the heads off of chicks. Apparently quail too... Sorry about your loss. Do you keep that many bobwhite quail together through breeding season? I heard they do not cooperate with more than just their mate.

 

[PatientType]

I'm just a beginner. After watching a huge number of YouTube videos, I built a two-level, outside, wood-framed cage. It's 4' long & 30" wide. Each level has flooring that is 1/2" plastic coated wire mesh on one side & sand box on the other side with a lattice wall between & a passage for the quail to move back & forth. The sand box side is enclosed with wood walls the plastic coated mesh floor side has non-plastic coated 1/2" mesh sides. Both sides have a wire mesh ceiling. There's a corrugated galvanized roof above the top level.
Droppings from the top level fall onto a polished metal pan that sits on the ceiling of the lower level. Droppings from the lower level fall to the ground. I screen droppings out of the sand on a weekly basis and expect to replace the sand every 3-4 months.
Our objective is primarily eggs. I'll have a flock of about 5 or six hens and one rooster on each level. That should produce more than enough eggs for my wife & I.
So far, the case seems to work fine. I expect it can withstand racoons, which are the largest predator here. The feeders & watering cups on on the mesh side of the cage. The birds hang out mostly in the sand side but come out off and on throughout the day for food, water, get some fresh air, and to move around.