Quail Free range?

[ScoutingInTheWoods]

So chickens and other birds can free range so i wandered if quail could. So i looked it up and some peoplke say yes some say no and some just have a quail tractor? Please help.

 

[el dorado quail]

ok thanks how would you train a chicken to come back to its coop? Because it might work with the quail maybe...Dont have much experience with chickens and non with quail.

Chickens have instincts to return to coops and rest I think. Quail are ground dwelling so they just sleep wherever.

 

[rlchatham]

The chicken would more likely than not kill the quail. Just not going to happen with quail. At least, I’ve never heard of it. Build a large aviary for them.

 

[maadroj]

This person says she free ranges hers.

I would be too afraid of losing mine to try.

I raised my California quail chicks indoors and would let them out of the brooder (in the bedroom) to eat/play several times per day. They always returned to the brooder voluntarily for naps or when they were afraid (and then I'd close it back up). When we moved them to the aviary, we left the brooder there in case, like a child's security blanket. They do go back inside it sometimes to rest or when nervous, but they've also found other spots they like to use, and they roost in tree branches at night. So they wouldn't go back to it to sleep if they were free range, and I'm not sure they'd stay nearby. In nature they have large territories, I think I read one acre per bird, so I don't think they'd naturally return to a specific spot each night if they were free range.

And of course, there's also the issue of predators.

 

[007Sean]

Quail as with most gamebirds will not do well at free range, unless they are wild birds.
Most will not return to a pen once they escape it. And certainly won't return every evening to roost.
Some folks say they have free ranging birds but that's not a normal behavior of pen raised gamebirds.

 

[Fishkeeper]

A chicken won't teach the quail to come back, no. The problem is the instincts. Quail don't have the instincts to return to a place every night to roost, like chickens do, and nothing you can do (except maybe a very long and difficult project to breed for those instincts) would change that. Quail are not chickens, even if they're raised by one.

 

[rlchatham]

Go ahead and try it if you'd like. But i am afraid they will be gone. One way or another. Just trying to be more realistic. The lady in the video only takes one out at a time when she is working i the garden. She took two as an experiment. The video doesn't show them coning back willfully or otherwise. Just use caution and a little common sense before you throw away your time raising your quail. I had three escape a few days ago. Haven’t even seen or heard them since.

 

[ManitobaQuail]

Oh and I just watched the video posted above. It's very true about only letting the "right"
quail free range.

I said that we only let "some" free range during the day - that's because the quail from one hutch (hatched from our own eggs) are socialized more with us, and seem to be genetically more tame (not sure if it's a thing). These birds don't mind being picked up at all and would not run away when we need to pick them up and put them back to the hutch. This hutch is the one with 3 broody hens (mentioned in my other posts).

The other hutch we don't interact as much, therefore they're not tame at all. They are scared of people basically. Even when we refill their food they'd run around and panic a bit.

 

[el dorado quail]

They don't return to a coop/house so it's better to house them in an aviary or other cage. I'm going to have a planted aviary and a mobile tractor for my flock

 

[el dorado quail]

ok thanks is there a way top train them to go back

Uhhh I don't know of anyone having success