Three brief quail questions

[cupman]

Hello I plan on doing 50 jumbo coturnix in the coming months and I just had a couple questions I need answered before I turn my old chicken coop into a quail pen.

1) Is there any way to encourage egg laying in a particular area or will they just lay everywhere? I've seen slanted pens but because my quail house is going to be an old chicken coop this method will not work for me.

2) If I am just raising them up to slaughter age does male/female ratio matter or can I just turn them loose unsexed into my quail pen?

3) How many eggs do Jumbo Coturnix quail lay each day? I plan on constructing a breeding pen(s) for sustainability with 1:4 ratio males to females and am trying to gauge how many breeding groups I will need to be able to set 50-75 quail eggs in the incubator.

Thanks in advance. Spring can't come soon enough, I really want some quails!

 

[navasima]

Wow. I think I need to ask a couple of questionsbefore I can try to answer yours.

Are you making drastic modifications for your habitat to go from chickens to Coturnix quail? Quite a size difference there......not to mention that quail don't roost. Big difference in how quail and chickens are housed.

Are you getting 50 adult quail or just enough adults to get 50 eggs to set? I'm a bit confused here....

 

[cupman]

It's just an old coop with an attached run. There's no roosts or nesting boxes. It's basically just a 18'x6' rectangular area.. 25% of the rectangle is enclosed to protect from the wind and rain. I still need to add a quail feeder/waterer and some sticks for them to hide/play in.

My plan is to order 50 quail eggs, maybe 100. I'll hatch those and put them in my old chicken coop. From there I'll sex the birds and create my breeding stock. I just want to use this area to raise quail up to slaughter age, clean the coop and repeat.

I wanted to know how many eggs a day to expect from jumbo coturnix quail so I would have an idea on how many breeding groups I needed.

 

[Stellar]

Hello I plan on doing 50 jumbo coturnix in the coming months and I just had a couple questions I need answered before I turn my old chicken coop into a quail pen.

1) Is there any way to encourage egg laying in a particular area or will they just lay everywhere? I've seen slanted pens but because my quail house is going to be an old chicken coop this method will not work for me.

2) If I am just raising them up to slaughter age does male/female ratio matter or can I just turn them loose unsexed into my quail pen?

3) How many eggs do Jumbo Coturnix quail lay each day? I plan on constructing a breeding pen(s) for sustainability with 1:4 ratio males to females and am trying to gauge how many breeding groups I will need to be able to set 50-75 quail eggs in the incubator.

Thanks in advance. Spring can't come soon enough, I really want some quails!

1) I put kitty litter pans/plastic shoe boxes in the pens (inside dirt with oyster shells) and usually find my eggs in there

2) Some people raise them 1:1, 1:3, or 2:6 (I raise them in these ratios perfectly fine)

3) Coturnix can lay up to 300 eggs a year

 

[rittert3]

3) According to my math with the M/F ratio you want you should get 3-4 eggs a day per pen or about 23 a week, I'm planning to do something similar but using a 1/3 ratio.

2) as far as I've read you should be ok with just growing them st. run but my experience some fighting the last 2-3 weeks before slaughter.

I plan to breed and hatch about 60 a month but I'm sexing mine at 4 weeks and selling them at 6 as started birds.

 

[chetrw]

Hello I plan on doing 50 jumbo coturnix in the coming months and I just had a couple questions I need answered before I turn my old chicken coop into a quail pen.

1) Is there any way to encourage egg laying in a particular area or will they just lay everywhere? I've seen slanted pens but because my quail house is going to be an old chicken coop this method will not work for me.
I raise mine on wire but from what I've seen lay were the get the urge.

2) If I am just raising them up to slaughter age does male/female ratio matter or can I just turn them loose unsexed into my quail pen?
When growing to slaughter ratio is not important as long as you are culling them at around 7 weeks. This is when the roo's started acting like roo's and it can be stressful for the hens with that many males.

3) How many eggs do Jumbo Coturnix quail lay each day? I plan on constructing a breeding pen(s) for sustainability with 1:4 ratio males to females and am trying to gauge how many breeding groups I will need to be able to set 50-75 quail eggs in the incubator.
Mine are averaging .7 a day or 5 a week. I have 3 breeding quads and am able to set 50 eggs at a time. I save them over a seven day period. Using this as a guide I would recommend having 5 quads to get to 75 eggs a week. You will need to give them artificial light the keep them laying.

Thanks in advance. Spring can't come soon enough, I really want some quails!

 

[Marinarawr]

I started with Jumbo Coturnix (1 male and 3 females) while I hatched out about 2 dozen more eggs. I kept the adults in a large rabbit hutch type pen and laid down straw for them to walk on with a dust pan off to one side. Occasionally I'd find an egg in the dust pan but I found that the females would kick out a little nest area in the straw and they preferred to drop their eggs there. It wasn't a terribly reliable system though since they'd randomly decide that they would make another nest (more of a simple hole really) and the eggs would get scattered. I'd generally get one egg a day with the occasional miss. A few times I even got more than one egg a day from a very productive female! Alas, a raccoon managed to get in there and have feast, but if I had to do it over again I'd definitely just go with a wire floor and tip the cage. Cutting out a vent for the eggs to roll out of the main cage would be ideal... I couldn't stand how they'd poop all over their eggs! I've decided that if I raise quail again this year it'll only be a seasonal venture. Good luck with yours! They're tasty little things.

 

[TheRealTimShady]

1) I put kitty litter pans/plastic shoe boxes in the pens (inside dirt with oyster shells) and usually find my eggs in there

2) Some people raise them 1:1, 1:3, or 2:6 (I raise them in these ratios perfectly fine)

3) Coturnix can lay up to 300 eggs a year

i'm with quail lady here.

1) any sort of pan, sand, bedding, w/e. I actually took a cardboard box, sealed it up, cut a hole in the front, put some bedding in it and cut a door in the back. not a DAY later all 10 of my females were laying inside that box, they love it.

2) general ration is 1:3/1:4. I run a 1:5 in one coop, and a 1:4 in my other coop(mainly b/c i don't want to many males around)

3) yep same as quaillady said, 300 a year is easy with proper lighting.




your old chicken coop should suffice, i'd just replace any chicken wire with 1/2" hardware cloth to make it safer.

 

[PondCreekRoad]

i'm with quail lady here.

1) any sort of pan, sand, bedding, w/e. I actually took a cardboard box, sealed it up, cut a hole in the front, put some bedding in it and cut a door in the back. not a DAY later all 10 of my females were laying inside that box, they love it.

2) general ration is 1:3/1:4. I run a 1:5 in one coop, and a 1:4 in my other coop(mainly b/c i don't want to many males around)

3) yep same as quaillady said, 300 a year is easy with proper lighting.




your old chicken coop should suffice, i'd just replace any chicken wire with 1/2" hardware cloth to make it safer.

yep im with quail lady also...good advice