quail pens

[dpenning]

1. This shows my setup although it is tough to see the birds. You can see my dogs stalking them. . I put six birds in each side of the hutch, one male and five females. The rest (18) are on the ground, not sure the gender mix but more females than males .

 

[xcalibor67]

Sorry I should have mentioned anything over 6 feet *should* be okay if they flush

Thank God...I really wanted that 6'5" pen. With the metal building listed above in link, and a 10' long x 4/5' wide pen, how many birds would it comfortably hold?

 

[xcalibor67]

Love the set-up, but around here it would surely be a death trap for my birds..Black snakes would run rampant through the wire size...But it sure looks good, lol.

 

[dpenning]

Love the set-up, but around here it would surely be a death trap for my birds..Black snakes would run rampant through the wire size...But it sure looks good, lol.

Honestly, the aviary area is more of an overflow with spares anyway. I built the hutch and never expected to have a 50% hatch rate my first time on shipped eggs so wound up with way more birds. I put the kennel over the hutch just to keep my dogs from getting any escapees when I went to collect eggs. It will be interesting to see if I have predator problems. I can always add welded wire around the base if I need to and decide I want to keep the aviary portion. Those birds may wind up in the freezer tho.

 

[Binki]

How many birds do you have in your aviary and what gender ratio?

My 30 are currently in two 3' x 4' hutches that I have inside my 10 x 10 aviary. They are 4.5 weeks old so getting ready to put one male and 5 females in each of the hutches and turn the rest loose down below in the aviary portion. I have more females than males but not sure how many I can get away with keeping in the aviary portion.

My aviary has become very overgrown with tall grass and I have a cage within it with an open bottom to the earth where a group of three hens are being kept before being directly introduced to the existing male and two females who have free run of the aviary.

That would be a total of six birds, five hens and one roo. I shouldn't have to clean the aviary til I move them to the modified rabbit hutch in the garage for the winter (Ontario, Canada).

Then I'll turn the soil somewhat in the fall and it'll be clean in the spring