Quail & Chickens - together / nearby ?

[EssexFarm]

Hi!
We're just getting into raising birds. My husband wants to raise quail and I am looking forward to raising chickens. Is there any reason to keep the breeds apart? If so, how far apart are you suggesting?

Thanks in advance! Love the forums here!
Chris

 

[ThaJuicyJuice]

There is a lot of evidence to show that keeping them together is a poor decision. However, a couple of feet should be adequate. Chickens have stronger immune systems than quail so if there is a down draft, wouldn't put the quail on the receiving end. Either than that, I wouldn't buy into the idea that keeping them only extreme distances apart is the way to go. Ventilation, Clean practices, and common sense go a long way.

 

[EssexFarm]

Thanks! I'll take this under advisement!
<squawk!>

 

[James the Bald]

Essex, welcome to the Quail forum on BYC. On my signature, there is a link on why quail and chickens shouldn't be kept together. In post 5 of that thread, he explains how the cross contamination occurred.

In her book Coturnix Revolution, Alexandra Douglas (aka, Stellar) highly discourages keeping the 2 species in close proximity.

I live in a suburban setting and can't "legally" have chickens, but I chose to raise quail for the many health benefits of quail eggs. My dietitian at the VA "congratulated" me on my choice of quail eggs over chicken eggs as they have 14 calories per egg vs 96 calories that a chicken egg has. It also contains more of the HDL Cholesterol than a chicken egg does.

Quail also mature in 8 - 12 weeks compared to the 5 months that it takes for a chicken to start laying eggs, so just my opinion, you would get a quicker return.
James

 

[bugflipper]

It really depends on the breed of quail. For instance many are more aggressive than chickens. In the brooder bobwhites will continually pick the toes of chickens. A very docile breed of chicken with a very aggressive breed of quail would be a bad idea when chicks since wild type birds are more prone to picking. Let's say a jumbo coturnix quail isn't known as being aggressive and would be much better than a Tennessee red.

I put bantams in with quail to stir the litter up in the runs. Sure every now and then a bobwhite will feel his oats and try to attack a rooster but he's quickly dissuaded and flies away. As long as there is enough space and places to hide there shouldn't be that big of an issue. A friend of mine raises LF with bobwhites and it's pretty well the same. The little bobwhite roosters are the instigators but they can't do any harm to his big chickens either. They just try to fight with the chicken and get ran off quickly.

With coturnix I've never seen them try to fight a chicken. They just move out of their way in a day to day scenario. Since quail are about the size of a young chick if the chickens were the aggressors they'd need to be in the pot anyhow since something that small couldn't be construed as a threat, they would just be bullying.

 

[dc3085]

Keep them apart and disinfect yourself in between handling each species. Chickens can carry several diseases that show no symptoms in them, but are fatal for quail. Click on the link in my signature if you want to see an example of what happens to a quail that gets a chicken disease. If that's not gross enough I can give you some more links. just wash your hands and don't let the quail eat chicken poop.

Don't take offense, everyone learns sometime, but please learn to use the advanced search function for questions like this. I personally have answered this question several dozen times, each time it's asked my answer gets less informative because I'm tired of typing it or linking it.

 

[EssexFarm]

Thanks everyone! I'll keep reading and learning. I appreciate your quick help - it's a big, big internet and backyardchickens world full of good and mis-information out there and it's hard to know where to begin when all you want to do is get your first bird. ("What could be so hard about raising a bird, right?")

Cheers!
Chris

 

[dc3085]

Thanks everyone! I'll keep reading and learning. I appreciate your quick help - it's a big, big internet and backyardchickens world full of good and mis-information out there and it's hard to know where to begin when all you want to do is get your first bird. ("What could be so hard about raising a bird, right?")

Cheers!
Chris

The birds themselves will teach you the most, just wait lol. It's a good idea to sift through the info you see here on BYC because like any open forum there is a lot of mis-information. Sadly most of the really good info on here is way back in the archives.

Good luck!