Quail questions

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007Sean said:
Howdy, :frow and Welcome to Backyard Chickens.

Happy :ya to have you here with us. Enjoy your time here at BYC!

You will want to provide them a complete and balanced gamebird ration of 24% protein. Chicken feed usually doesn't have the right amount of protein or the essential minerals and vitamins that gamebird feeds contain.

Mealworms would be considered a 'treat' and as such should not be more than 10% of their dietary intake. Chicks can be raised on 30% protein feed until they reach adulthood but that amount of protein isn't necessary....24% is adequate.
A heat lamp if used as a source of warmth, should be regulated in the brooder at 90 to 95°F for the 1st week after hatching, this temp should be taken at floor of the brooder, you will need a warm end and a cool end to your brooder. The temperature should be decreased by 5°F/week, until ambient temperatures are 70°F or the chicks have become fully feathered.

As far as being able to tell sex...male's will have rusty reddish color feathers on their breast, female's will have black/ dark brown spots on their breast feathers, if you can't tell, then wait until they either crow or lay eggs. Also, you can vent sex them. A good ratio of 1 male to 4-5 females is usually recommended. HTH

Thanks for joining our community! :celebrate
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Thank you for the advice!
 
Quailaremyjam03 said:
One more thing should I just leave a constant supply of food out for them?
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If your not worried about mice, rats, ants or the chance of luring in predators, than you can use a gravity type feeder or a covered feeder. Quail won't gorge themselves but they do tend to waste alot of feed if they have constant access to the feed, ie; scratch or use their beaks to shovel it out on the ground.
 
Hi! Welcome to BYC. I’ve been raising Northern Bobwhites and coturnix quail for a few years, so I might be able to answer a few questions. Like Sean said, feed with 24% protein is best for starting quail and other game birds. I’d recommend Manna Pro’s Gamebird Showbird Starter Grower. It has 24% protein and I’ve found it to work perfectly. The only problem is that the crumbs are too big for newly hatched quail chicks to eat because of their size, but you can easily put it through a blender until the crumbs are small enough for baby quail. For the first week I usually blend the food till its a fine, gritty size and I blend it less and less as the quail get bigger.
Mealworms should only be a treat for quail and not a big part of their diet. They can’t get all the necessary nutrients and vitamins from insects, although they are a good source of protein and fats.
I keep a heat lamp on for my babies until they are either fully feathered and able to keep their own warmth in, or until you’ve lowered the temp by 5 degrees each week and the temp of the heat lamp is the same temperature of the quail’s habitat.
As for sexing your quail, I’ve only ever waited until they were fully feathered to feather sex them, or waited even longer until the males crowed and the females layed. I’ve never tried to sex quail as chicks, I’m not sure if you even can. The only problem with feather sexing is that not all Coturnix colors are able to be feather sexed. I own around 30 coturnix and they are all different colors. Only a handful of mine are feather sexable, although I wish all of them were because that would make everything a lot easier! Do you know what color your jumbos are? Typically jumbos are either brown or white, but I’m not sure what type you were getting. Brown jumbo males seem to have a red breast, and females have a light cream colored breast with black speckles. Jumbo whites cannot be feather sexed, both sexes look the same.
As for differences in care with other breeds, the only other quail I have experience with are Northern Bobwhites although they are actually a whole different species. The biggest difference between the two is that bobwhites are much more skittish and flighty, and they are actually capable of flying unlike coturnix who are too heavy for their wings to carry them anywhere but downhill. I actually got rid of most of my bobwhites after I found out coturnix were a lot easier to handle although I kept a male and a couple hens. One of my bobwhite hens is perfectly capable of living with my coturnix and receives the same care and feed as the rest of the quail. However the other two prefer to live by themselves, and will become aggressive to any bird that’s near them.
To answer your question if you should leave feed out or feed them multiple times a day, either one would work. I’ve always left their food out, we don’t have any mice or insect problems at all any more and the feeders I have now can hold enough food for all my birds for a day or two which makes feeding less of a hassle. Whatever works for you is fine, but I think giving them constant access to food is easiest. I don’t have much of a problem with them scraping or kicking their food out and wasting it because they can only access their food through a small hole. That was a problem with my previous feeder but we replaced that one after beetles started infesting the ground where the quail dumped out all their food. We haven‘t had a problem like that since. I don’t know how much you would feed your quail if you decided not to give them constant access, which is another reason why I don‘t do that.
Sorry for writing a whole book here! Hopefully this helps a little! Let us know if you have any more questions :)
 
Northern_Bobwhite said:
Hi! Welcome to BYC. I’ve been raising Northern Bobwhites and coturnix quail for a few years, so I might be able to answer a few questions. Like Sean said, feed with 24% protein is best for starting quail and other game birds. I’d recommend Manna Pro’s Gamebird Showbird Starter Grower. It has 24% protein and I’ve found it to work perfectly. The only problem is that the crumbs are too big for newly hatched quail chicks to eat because of their size, but you can easily put it through a blender until the crumbs are small enough for baby quail. For the first week I usually blend the food till its a fine, gritty size and I blend it less and less as the quail get bigger.
Mealworms should only be a treat for quail and not a big part of their diet. They can’t get all the necessary nutrients and vitamins from insects, although they are a good source of protein and fats.
I keep a heat lamp on for my babies until they are either fully feathered and able to keep their own warmth in, or until you’ve lowered the temp by 5 degrees each week and the temp of the heat lamp is the same temperature of the quail’s habitat.
As for sexing your quail, I’ve only ever waited until they were fully feathered to feather sex them, or waited even longer until the males crowed and the females layed. I’ve never tried to sex quail as chicks, I’m not sure if you even can. The only problem with feather sexing is that not all Coturnix colors are able to be feather sexed. I own around 30 coturnix and they are all different colors. Only a handful of mine are feather sexable, although I wish all of them were because that would make everything a lot easier! Do you know what color your jumbos are? Typically jumbos are either brown or white, but I’m not sure what type you were getting. Brown jumbo males seem to have a red breast, and females have a light cream colored breast with black speckles. Jumbo whites cannot be feather sexed, both sexes look the same.
As for differences in care with other breeds, the only other quail I have experience with are Northern Bobwhites although they are actually a whole different species. The biggest difference between the two is that bobwhites are much more skittish and flighty, and they are actually capable of flying unlike coturnix who are too heavy for their wings to carry them anywhere but downhill. I actually got rid of most of my bobwhites after I found out coturnix were a lot easier to handle although I kept a male and a couple hens. One of my bobwhite hens is perfectly capable of living with my coturnix and receives the same care and feed as the rest of the quail. However the other two prefer to live by themselves, and will become aggressive to any bird that’s near them.
To answer your question if you should leave feed out or feed them multiple times a day, either one would work. I’ve always left their food out, we don’t have any mice or insect problems at all any more and the feeders I have now can hold enough food for all my birds for a day or two which makes feeding less of a hassle. Whatever works for you is fine, but I think giving them constant access to food is easiest. I don’t have much of a problem with them scraping or kicking their food out and wasting it because they can only access their food through a small hole. That was a problem with my previous feeder but we replaced that one after beetles started infesting the ground where the quail dumped out all their food. We haven‘t had a problem like that since. I don’t know how much you would feed your quail if you decided not to give them constant access, which is another reason why I don‘t do that.
Sorry for writing a whole book here! Hopefully this helps a little! Let us know if you have any more questions :)
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Thank you! The chicks I am getting are brown. This has been very helpful. Can you use a chicken egg incubator for quail eggs? One of my relatives has a chicken egg incubator.
 

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