Wire floor or bedding?

[AlaskaPets]

I'm thinking about getting into quail for selling eggs and chicks. I'm in the process of designing the cage setup, and I can't decide between wire or bedding.
I live in Alaska, and I plan on keeping them in a stacked setup in an insulated shed. It can get as low as -36°F where I'm at.
They won't have supplemental heat, so I'm worried that the wire floor will get too cold for their feet. (They will also have a sand bath, no matter what flooring I go with.)
Part of me wants to go with bedding for warmth and natural behaviors, and part of me wants to use wire for hygiene and egg rollouts. I can't decide.

For people who live in cold climates, what do you do for flooring?

 

[Nabiki]

It sounds like you're going to want bedding rather than the wire flooring. While coturnix are very cold hardy, they do have some needs like being able to keep their feet warm, which won't happen on wire. They should also be dry and out of the wind with small shelters to snuggle into. If they can burrow into the bedding, so much the better.

 

[GoosesGeeses]

Oops, didn't mean to write that, deleted it. I use bedding and it gets to -15f here

 

[catesquire]

We can get to -30F or lower in my area. I had my quail on wood pellets until December this winter, which worked great above freezing, but on days below freezing the bedding turned into a solid poop ice cube that didn't allow for the birds to snuggle down into it at all, and which turned to mush and had to be quickly cleaned out the moment it defrosted. I don't know how much extra warmth that ice cube provided compared to wire, and they were building up poop balls on their toes at an alarming rate. I switched them to wire around January and it's been much better for their for health, and I've noticed no difference in their behavior as far as how cold they act.

A breeder I respect recommends wire (vinyl coated, not bare metal!), with straw added in on days it gets below 0F so they have the extra insulation, which is what I intend to do next winter.

For further context, I keep mine on an enclosed and barely insulated porch; the birds didn't even act particularly cold until it dipped below 20F in their enclosure.

 

[Susan Skylark]

I hated a half inch of bedding in a shallow pan with water bottles in small breeding pens, the cages got messy fast. I switched to a large group pen on deep litter and nipple waterers, birds are much happier and efficient with bedding and maintenance. Getting eggs is still a hunt though. At those temps the birds are fine but eggs freeze solid in twenty minutes and keeping water open is a chore.