raising quail naturally

[quailcottage]

Our chicken tractor (meant to be upgraded for quail) has chicken wire underneath, and behind the nesting box doors, which invited snakes. Lost eggs, & several hens, even though they were too big for the snakes to swallow. As soon as possible, 1/2" rat wire will replace all of the chicken wire.

qc

 

[ashima1379]

In our area a mesh is the best option. We have snakes and critters that would just laugh at chicken wire. I did note that quail won't climb up into a shelter. Anybody have ideas on protection while on the ground aside from digging the fencing deep into the ground? We also have a few scorpions. Have only had one show up in the house so far, but we've only been here three months. Are those a threat to quail, or chickens for that matter?

 

[TwoCrows]

They will climb up ramps, steps and what have you.

This is the view inside a rabbit hutch...


This is the same hutch inside a greenhouse....


And this bird is standing in that hole in the back of the above picture, (view in the first picture) looking out into the aviary. They hop up on blocks to get up and into the rabbit hutch....


This is a smaller chicken coop with run I use too...

 

[TwoCrows]

The inside of my aviary....

 

[TwoCrows]

The communal bath....


One elaborate nest built by a pair of Bobwhites...

 

[ashima1379]

Wow. I'm in love with these pictures. That's a beautiful aviary. I'm glad to know they climb. I just see so many people stating that they don't. Unless i was mistaken or they were just talking about Coturnix.

 

[TwoCrows]

You sort of have to train them to use enclosures, just as you would train chickens to use a coop. What you do is lock them in their enclosure for several days before you let them out into a run or aviary. This trains them that the enclosure is a very safe place to be. After a couple days you open the door to the run or aviary. They will be scared to come out for a while, but they won't forget the safety of their coop and will return and use the ramp when they feel the need to sleep inside.

 

[purslanegarden]

I've had quail in an outside coop for several years now. I think my area does not have digging predators, or at least the ones I have, don't care enough to dig. As a result, I have been OK with a simple pen is that is basically a big wooden pen with chicken wire. Home made with a few 2x4s and smaller wood pieces.

No digging was needed, and the pen just simply sits on top of the ground. One precaution we did learn about after the first 2 incidents of a bird getting pulled through the 1" chicken wire holes was that we decided to use 1/4" hardware cloth on the bottom 1-2 feet of the pen. It took two times because we were unsure what really happened the first time and how to prevent it. (Now upon reading more from this site, it was likely a raccoon that pulls the bird through the 1" holes because the birds like to sleep near the edge of the coop even though they have all the entire coop to sleep in, far away from the edges of the coop).

It can be moved when needed but a few years ago, I learned that using straw helped in the sense of being able to keep them in the same spot, too. So now they have a fairly permanent spot where I clean out the straw every couple of months.

 

[lomine]

Wow @TwoCrows that is an impressive aviary. Your birds must be so happy exploring around those branches.

 

[TwoCrows]

Wow @TwoCrows
that is an impressive aviary. Your birds must be so happy exploring around those branches.

Yes they sure do love the natural feeling of lurking in the under brush as their wild cousins do. I used to use live branches but they dried out way too fast, I got tired of cutting and hauling the live ones in, the dead ones out, so I eventually switched to fake christmas trees. LOL The fake trees really confused the birds at first, being that they could no longer nibble on the fake leaves even though they looked so real. LOL