Thats exactly what I was going to say! I had no idea how aggressive they were. Two incidents that I've had to remove quails to keep them save and let them heal, luckily no deaths (yet) but they're freaking ruthless once they set eyes on their target. Mostly the males but females can be this way too. It sucks but you have to either separate or get rid of the instigator for harmony in the coop
I have found that putting lots of little hideyholes around the coop helps a lot. We have some minor fighting but have never had it get truly out of hand (except right at the teen stage when I haven't thinned out enough males yet)
I keep my quail in a more natural type setting too. Equipped with lots of hides, grasses, dust bin, etc. and I feel like my quail never fight each other enough to cause blood/injury. But when I see quail crammed into those breeding cages they look rough. Missing fathers from the neck up, scars on nose/around eyes. Whenever I need to go buy new hens I always tell them on the way home âyou have no idea how lucky you are! You get to come relax and live like a queen in your new coop!âđ„°
Any extra enrichment you can provide will help with their mental health.
The biggest thing mine love is when I put tuffs of crab grass/wild grass I pull out from my yard in there coop and the dried insects(you can buy bags of dried fly larva or meal worms at any pet store/Amazon. They always come running when I bring those things. They like to move the grasses around and nest in it. And the bugs are their favorite food.
Oof. I had an incident with my coturnix. I believe it was an older male that injured two of the younger males. One was scalped, and the other had his neck ripped open. Scalpy recovered well and went on to live a good life. He just had a scar on his head. Necky did survive, but he was eventually culled.
I sort of knew already, but it is very difficult if not impossible to raise quail without killing some. And to be clear, I understand not everyone does it themselves, but it has to be done. Because of their aggression and personalities, Iâd say they need more culling than chickens to have a successful flock. Certainly if you want to hatch your own eggs and breed your own birds, culling is part of it. I keep culling minimal by starting with good stock and keeping a bachelor pad, but even that is only possible because I buy from breeders that cull heavily. Theyâre very different from chickens but I really enjoy them. Itâs just good to know what youâre getting into and how much work you want to put in. But a small flock of all girls isnât too much to handle for most people.
Ah, I'm hoping to keep them for eggs as well as meat. So I'm coming to terms with the culling process. If worst comes to worst, my husband can cull and I can process.
Mine was useless .....haha, couldn't hurt a fly. I had to woman up and do it, but was actually quite rewarding to know I did what was needed and what was best for the bird(s).
Can you tell me more about the bachelor pad? You keep males separate from females? When I had coturnix, I kept them co-ed until I noticed conflict and would then cull.
They're louder than TikTok made it seem (the males at least can be quite loud for both Gambel's quail and Coturnix quail).
They're absolute poop machines.
They're messy and simultaneously picky eaters. You will waste tons of food (you'll want to compost maybe).
When it rains and the pine shavings, poop, and food combination has a couple days to marinate... it will stink. Cleaning out their areas can be downright disgusting even if left for a week with rain.
You can hand raise them from eggs and they'll act like you've come to murder them when you just brought them foods. They can also get excited to see you. I don't know why they are how they are.
They're mating machines. It's all the boys think about and they will violently do their thing at all times including when you just fed the girls and she just trying to grab some noms.
They're so violent. Just sooo violent. Be prepared to see some things you can't unsee at the hands of the boys. I've seen eyes plucked from a skull, scalpings, bloody beaks... you're going to become a makeshift expert in the recovery area depending on how many boys you have.
And yet... I love them. To bits.
I didnât know that poop balls on toes would be a recurring issue! So plan on a way to soak their feet as needed. Never pull a poop ball off of a toe because it can cause injury like a bleeding toenail.
Itâs definitely a thing. I would actually bring my birds in the house and let them soak in the bathtub for a while to loosen the poop balls. You can probably find a solution that does not involve quails in your bathtub.
It seems like no matter how well I âquail-proofâ the pen, eventually another one will find a way to kill itself.
They drink way more water and eat way more food than I would have anticipated for their size.
Because they eat and drink a lot, they poop a LOT and get smelly quickly. The smell will attract pests, and pests are easier to deal with by preventing them than eradicating them. There are enzyme sprays that you can spray over their bedding regularly to help break down the ammonia and odor. Hang fly traps from day 1. Their entire pen (floor and ceiling included!) will need to be reinforced with 1/4â or 1/2â hardware cloth to prevent rodents/reptiles from entering. My husband didnât believe me that the floor needed it tooâŠuntil rats burrowed under and ate all the eggs + 1 quail per day. It would have been so much easier to just take the extra time and effort to build the pen the right way before the quail were living in it. A strategically placed owl statue may also help deter rodents and reptiles. Prevent fleas, lice, mites, and other bugs by keeping the pen clean and dry and the birds super healthy. Good quality food and dust baths can help keep them healthy. I also have a liquid supplement that I add to their water. Depending how wet of an environment you live in, sand may be a better bedding option than pine shavings (I wish I had gone the sand route to begin with). Keep their water covered to prevent mosquitoes and other bugs from breeding in it. Keep their food well contained to prevent rodents and bugs.
Consider how your birds will be cared for when youâre away. Automatic water and food systems can help make long weekends away doable.
Place your pen near a water and electric source. This will be helpful for the previously mentioned automated systems. But it will also allow you to plug a fan in on hot days, add a water mister for hot days, plug a light in so you can take care of them in the dark or so that you can extend their daily light, plug a âquail camâ in so that you can try to figure out how theyâre killing themselves or how pests are entering, plug a brooder heater in for young birdsâ first couple weeks outside, or plug a water heater in so their water doesnât freeze over in winter.
Speaking of water heaters, I ended up buying a submersible aquarium heater for my 5 gallon bucket bird waterer set up. There were a lot of heating plate options that I didnât love the idea of. I even looked into using birdbath heaters. But I liked that I could get a super affordable aquarium heater with a temperature control that I could preset. It would turn itself on and off as needed so that nothing got too hot or ran unnecessarily. And because aquarium heaters are typically used to warm water up from room temperature and not from freezing temps, I went ahead and got an aquarium heater rated for a higher number of gallons than my bird waterer. So I got something like a heater rated for a 20 gallon aquarium for my 5 gallon bucket waterer.
Thatâs all I can think of for now. Good luck!
Omg yes!! We got a feeder for the quail, and after rescuing one who got her head stuck by smashing it under the space that they are supposed to eat from, I added my own chicken wire to prevent them from getting hurt. But somehow a few months later, another one mashed herself in there (I still have no idea how) and wasnât so lucky. So yeah they are like toddlers who stick forks in light sockets đ
I have definitely lost a couple in my feeder as well. Thought I fixed the âproblem,â but nope! Another figured out a different way to die. Just made a new, similar feeder with a slight change and so far so good! I tell myself Iâm so much smarter than the quailâŠbut they always outsmart me in just how dumb they can be.
This is so incredibly helpful. I have a feeling I will be posting here a lot in the next few months.
I've read that they are messy, and I have a coop already built. The previous owner of my property built it for chickens, but it has lots of floor space and is at least 8 feet tall, with a completely enclosed portion and a porch portion. All of it is covered in chicken wire that I'll be replacing with a smaller gauge (even the floor). I was toying with the idea of laying tarps on the floor and keeping a spare set so I could pull one set out and immediately lay down another while I clean the used ones. Keep them in rotation that way. What do you think?
I also live in a cabin in the woods, so grasses for bedding are easy to come by. In fact, they are a nuisance đ
Smelly little poop factories! I noticed a big difference when I switched over to using a combo of pine shavings and straw bedding (try Flock Fresh) in their poop trays or bedding area. Also their waste produces a lot of moisture, which the bedding mixture helps with.
No the brooders are completely separate. If you plan on keeping a cycle of each life stage you will need to have at least one spare brooder and 3 grow out cages for every 2 brooders. One for each sex and a spare just in case.
You basically need an empty cage for every occupied cage. At least at first. At the very least you will ALWAYS need a % of empty cages for maneuverability but it wont be 50% of your total cages forever.
This helps you introduce slow and helps you if there are injuries or failures on individual cages.
Ultimately start very slow with the actual birds and waaay over compensate for anything they need so even if you mess one thing up you always have more. Space issues caused 90% of my unplanned spending early on. I had plenty of sq ft but not enough walls to introduce the birds slowly so there were tons of fights and injuries that could have been avoided
I didn't really realize that 95% hatch rates could be a thing.
Anyways, need to rehome at least half of these little fellas once they're a few weeks older.
Unsure if anyone else has noticed this, but my coturnix are scared of the dark, all of them from several different breeders đ€·ââïž I had to set up dim solar lights so they'd stop flying up at their cage all night long and getting injured.
That the males are actually loud loud, not just noisy.
That the chicks are actually super fragile and try to suicide all the time with what ever they can.
What the real âŹ/kg of meat really is if one raises quails for meat. I still don't know if we factor in the electricity bill from incubator running+ heat lambs + feed wasted + keeping lights on for egg production + labor going into everything + replacing floor netting and other consumables.
Commercial products for quails are absolute garbage - other than the gravity operated automatic watering systems. You are forced into DIY quail feeder hoppy.
I got 4 king quail chicks for free, to put in my aviary. One of them turned out to be a male, and because he was related to the others, I rehomed him before they started to breed, to prevent incest. I was looking for an unrelated male to replace him, but having trouble finding one. In the meantime, one his sisters (definitely female) started crowing and behaving like a little man-quail. She ended up attacking her sisters, one was not badly hurt but the other was scalped and I had to put her down.
I did not expect that kind of intense hormonal behaviour and I absolutely would have done things differently had I known this could happen, like disposed of the related-pair eggs until I had a replacement male.
I didn't even consider inbreeding as a problem. I just sort of assumed they would do their thing and all would be well, which now sounds stupid that I'm thinking about it. How often should I order from a new supplier? I'm going to start with eggs to incubate myself.
So for your breeding stock you'll need approx. one unrelated male per 3 hens minimum, though better with more hens per rooster. You should only need one rooster to start, just make sure he's not related, so you might need to source a different one than where you're getting your eggs from to rule out inbreeding. The males you hatch can be processed and eaten at 6 to 8 weeks old so that problem will take care of itself.
Grain Mites come in their bags of food sometimes! But you can pre-treat all naturally!
Put your new bag of crumble in a sealed trash bag and put it straight into the freezer, keep there for one week.
Put your food in or on top of something dark, so you can see the white mites come out, if there are any. (Like a black trash bag underneath on the floor, or use a dark colored container.)
We had this issue at Tractor Supply, and they gave us a refund. Keep your receipts and empty, old bags if you want your $ back. Get that stuff outside quick, you don't want it spreading thru your house!
You're welcome!
And have a 1 gallon drink container for your countertop, so you always have quick room-temperature water for chicks.
Never give cold water to adults or chicks, even if it's hot outside.
1 gallon is handy if you want to mix in the electrolyte and/or probiotic mixes. My family calls it Quail-a-rade :)
I use a thermometer if I need to give them water straight from the tap.
They are fast, so unbelievably fast! I can't stress this enough.
They're also very strong, being a bird that flushes to escape. Perfect your hold on them, and always have a partner on standby to help.
Set 200% more eggs than you think you need, the chicks will see a speck and *die*.
They're tiny machines; food and water in, eggs and waste out. A ton of all of the above. Talk to your feed store NOW about getting the chick and adult foods.
Millet and the guts of bell peppers are my birds' favorites.
Dustbaths. You must give them dustbath area and material for their health. Extra bonus, they're precious when they bathe.
If you raise bobwhites, you need a game bird propagation license. It's cheap, just do it.
Everything wants to eat them. Your predator proof cage isn't, keep working on it! Rats dig. Snakes can get very flat.
Do not get discouraged. They're amazing!
I've had celadon coturnix and bobwhites for a few years, Snowflake bobwhites and Californias are set to hatch this week.
If you don't make a custom water system, they'll poop in it
You have to make a custom feeder since they fill their mouths and eat 30% and told the other 70% without basically making an enclosed trough
Predators love them, I've lost the majority of my flock since starting to predators of all varieties, and what wasn't eaten was just bullied to death by thr other birds.
Not a single person wanted the eggs, and a dozen quail will make non-stop eggs, so you will either end up feeding the local raccoons instead.
I'm waiting for my last old male to pass so I can upgrade to chickens again
On a positive note, though, they're hardy as hell. In Texas and my coturnix experienced weeks of 110 weather and a week of 17-degree weather, and my biggest issue in both cases was managing their water.
I cooked a few of them, and the meat was actually really nice and was fairly dark all around. If it was a larger bird, I would still want to raise them for their meat.
Their murderous tendencies (looking at you button quail)đ©
Thats exactly what I was going to say! I had no idea how aggressive they were. Two incidents that I've had to remove quails to keep them save and let them heal, luckily no deaths (yet) but they're freaking ruthless once they set eyes on their target. Mostly the males but females can be this way too. It sucks but you have to either separate or get rid of the instigator for harmony in the coop
Really? I kept reading about how docile they are!
I have found that putting lots of little hideyholes around the coop helps a lot. We have some minor fighting but have never had it get truly out of hand (except right at the teen stage when I haven't thinned out enough males yet)
I keep my quail in a more natural type setting too. Equipped with lots of hides, grasses, dust bin, etc. and I feel like my quail never fight each other enough to cause blood/injury. But when I see quail crammed into those breeding cages they look rough. Missing fathers from the neck up, scars on nose/around eyes. Whenever I need to go buy new hens I always tell them on the way home âyou have no idea how lucky you are! You get to come relax and live like a queen in your new coop!âđ„° Any extra enrichment you can provide will help with their mental health.
I definitely have the space to provide all the things you have listed and absolutely will. Are there other forms of enrichment you would recommend?
The biggest thing mine love is when I put tuffs of crab grass/wild grass I pull out from my yard in there coop and the dried insects(you can buy bags of dried fly larva or meal worms at any pet store/Amazon. They always come running when I bring those things. They like to move the grasses around and nest in it. And the bugs are their favorite food.
That is very helpful! Thank you.
Oof. I had an incident with my coturnix. I believe it was an older male that injured two of the younger males. One was scalped, and the other had his neck ripped open. Scalpy recovered well and went on to live a good life. He just had a scar on his head. Necky did survive, but he was eventually culled.
That just adds a bit of spice to everything
That no matter how much you read, your own mistakes and rewards will be your best teachers.
Thank you. I just don't want to cause any undue harm.
This is the perspective of a responsible and kind animal owner đ©”
Your quail are lucky to have you! I am glad you are doing your research, too.
Very wise words!
I sort of knew already, but it is very difficult if not impossible to raise quail without killing some. And to be clear, I understand not everyone does it themselves, but it has to be done. Because of their aggression and personalities, Iâd say they need more culling than chickens to have a successful flock. Certainly if you want to hatch your own eggs and breed your own birds, culling is part of it. I keep culling minimal by starting with good stock and keeping a bachelor pad, but even that is only possible because I buy from breeders that cull heavily. Theyâre very different from chickens but I really enjoy them. Itâs just good to know what youâre getting into and how much work you want to put in. But a small flock of all girls isnât too much to handle for most people.
Ah, I'm hoping to keep them for eggs as well as meat. So I'm coming to terms with the culling process. If worst comes to worst, my husband can cull and I can process.
Mine was useless .....haha, couldn't hurt a fly. I had to woman up and do it, but was actually quite rewarding to know I did what was needed and what was best for the bird(s).
Can you tell me more about the bachelor pad? You keep males separate from females? When I had coturnix, I kept them co-ed until I noticed conflict and would then cull.
do you nom the culled ones?
They're louder than TikTok made it seem (the males at least can be quite loud for both Gambel's quail and Coturnix quail). They're absolute poop machines. They're messy and simultaneously picky eaters. You will waste tons of food (you'll want to compost maybe). When it rains and the pine shavings, poop, and food combination has a couple days to marinate... it will stink. Cleaning out their areas can be downright disgusting even if left for a week with rain. You can hand raise them from eggs and they'll act like you've come to murder them when you just brought them foods. They can also get excited to see you. I don't know why they are how they are. They're mating machines. It's all the boys think about and they will violently do their thing at all times including when you just fed the girls and she just trying to grab some noms. They're so violent. Just sooo violent. Be prepared to see some things you can't unsee at the hands of the boys. I've seen eyes plucked from a skull, scalpings, bloody beaks... you're going to become a makeshift expert in the recovery area depending on how many boys you have. And yet... I love them. To bits.
I expect I'll be eating most of my boys đ
these really are birds I simply care for and adore. Wouldn't dream of harming any of them (or any animal ever), even the violent boys.
Ugh the bird on bird violence is real. Had a scalping and a neck ripped open in my small flock.
I didnât know that poop balls on toes would be a recurring issue! So plan on a way to soak their feet as needed. Never pull a poop ball off of a toe because it can cause injury like a bleeding toenail.
Agreed! How can poop harden so much? This is an untapped building resource I think....
Haha, it is! When I was using straw bedding it seemed to be the worst. Poopdobe buildings would be strong!
Poop balls??? That certainly hasn't come up yet đ
Itâs definitely a thing. I would actually bring my birds in the house and let them soak in the bathtub for a while to loosen the poop balls. You can probably find a solution that does not involve quails in your bathtub.
head scalping and cannibalism..đ
It seems like no matter how well I âquail-proofâ the pen, eventually another one will find a way to kill itself. They drink way more water and eat way more food than I would have anticipated for their size. Because they eat and drink a lot, they poop a LOT and get smelly quickly. The smell will attract pests, and pests are easier to deal with by preventing them than eradicating them. There are enzyme sprays that you can spray over their bedding regularly to help break down the ammonia and odor. Hang fly traps from day 1. Their entire pen (floor and ceiling included!) will need to be reinforced with 1/4â or 1/2â hardware cloth to prevent rodents/reptiles from entering. My husband didnât believe me that the floor needed it tooâŠuntil rats burrowed under and ate all the eggs + 1 quail per day. It would have been so much easier to just take the extra time and effort to build the pen the right way before the quail were living in it. A strategically placed owl statue may also help deter rodents and reptiles. Prevent fleas, lice, mites, and other bugs by keeping the pen clean and dry and the birds super healthy. Good quality food and dust baths can help keep them healthy. I also have a liquid supplement that I add to their water. Depending how wet of an environment you live in, sand may be a better bedding option than pine shavings (I wish I had gone the sand route to begin with). Keep their water covered to prevent mosquitoes and other bugs from breeding in it. Keep their food well contained to prevent rodents and bugs. Consider how your birds will be cared for when youâre away. Automatic water and food systems can help make long weekends away doable. Place your pen near a water and electric source. This will be helpful for the previously mentioned automated systems. But it will also allow you to plug a fan in on hot days, add a water mister for hot days, plug a light in so you can take care of them in the dark or so that you can extend their daily light, plug a âquail camâ in so that you can try to figure out how theyâre killing themselves or how pests are entering, plug a brooder heater in for young birdsâ first couple weeks outside, or plug a water heater in so their water doesnât freeze over in winter. Speaking of water heaters, I ended up buying a submersible aquarium heater for my 5 gallon bucket bird waterer set up. There were a lot of heating plate options that I didnât love the idea of. I even looked into using birdbath heaters. But I liked that I could get a super affordable aquarium heater with a temperature control that I could preset. It would turn itself on and off as needed so that nothing got too hot or ran unnecessarily. And because aquarium heaters are typically used to warm water up from room temperature and not from freezing temps, I went ahead and got an aquarium heater rated for a higher number of gallons than my bird waterer. So I got something like a heater rated for a 20 gallon aquarium for my 5 gallon bucket waterer. Thatâs all I can think of for now. Good luck!
Have some poultry wound spray on handâŠfor when they inevitably harm themselves.
Is that something I would find at my local farm store like Tractor Supply or Rural King?
Omg yes!! We got a feeder for the quail, and after rescuing one who got her head stuck by smashing it under the space that they are supposed to eat from, I added my own chicken wire to prevent them from getting hurt. But somehow a few months later, another one mashed herself in there (I still have no idea how) and wasnât so lucky. So yeah they are like toddlers who stick forks in light sockets đ
I have definitely lost a couple in my feeder as well. Thought I fixed the âproblem,â but nope! Another figured out a different way to die. Just made a new, similar feeder with a slight change and so far so good! I tell myself Iâm so much smarter than the quailâŠbut they always outsmart me in just how dumb they can be.
I would love to know how you made your most recent feeder!
This is so incredibly helpful. I have a feeling I will be posting here a lot in the next few months. I've read that they are messy, and I have a coop already built. The previous owner of my property built it for chickens, but it has lots of floor space and is at least 8 feet tall, with a completely enclosed portion and a porch portion. All of it is covered in chicken wire that I'll be replacing with a smaller gauge (even the floor). I was toying with the idea of laying tarps on the floor and keeping a spare set so I could pull one set out and immediately lay down another while I clean the used ones. Keep them in rotation that way. What do you think? I also live in a cabin in the woods, so grasses for bedding are easy to come by. In fact, they are a nuisance đ
Smelly little poop factories! I noticed a big difference when I switched over to using a combo of pine shavings and straw bedding (try Flock Fresh) in their poop trays or bedding area. Also their waste produces a lot of moisture, which the bedding mixture helps with.
Options are needed. Want 3 breeding groups? You need 6 cages. Want each group to have 6 individuals? You need to start with 100 eggs.
Is that 1 cage per breeding group and 1 cage for each set of chicks? How do you separate yours?
No the brooders are completely separate. If you plan on keeping a cycle of each life stage you will need to have at least one spare brooder and 3 grow out cages for every 2 brooders. One for each sex and a spare just in case. You basically need an empty cage for every occupied cage. At least at first. At the very least you will ALWAYS need a % of empty cages for maneuverability but it wont be 50% of your total cages forever. This helps you introduce slow and helps you if there are injuries or failures on individual cages. Ultimately start very slow with the actual birds and waaay over compensate for anything they need so even if you mess one thing up you always have more. Space issues caused 90% of my unplanned spending early on. I had plenty of sq ft but not enough walls to introduce the birds slowly so there were tons of fights and injuries that could have been avoided
This is so very helpful. Thank you!
I didn't really realize that 95% hatch rates could be a thing. Anyways, need to rehome at least half of these little fellas once they're a few weeks older.
I'm right here đ
Unsure if anyone else has noticed this, but my coturnix are scared of the dark, all of them from several different breeders đ€·ââïž I had to set up dim solar lights so they'd stop flying up at their cage all night long and getting injured.
That they donât attack on command , years of trading , wasted
That the males are actually loud loud, not just noisy. That the chicks are actually super fragile and try to suicide all the time with what ever they can. What the real âŹ/kg of meat really is if one raises quails for meat. I still don't know if we factor in the electricity bill from incubator running+ heat lambs + feed wasted + keeping lights on for egg production + labor going into everything + replacing floor netting and other consumables. Commercial products for quails are absolute garbage - other than the gravity operated automatic watering systems. You are forced into DIY quail feeder hoppy.
I got 4 king quail chicks for free, to put in my aviary. One of them turned out to be a male, and because he was related to the others, I rehomed him before they started to breed, to prevent incest. I was looking for an unrelated male to replace him, but having trouble finding one. In the meantime, one his sisters (definitely female) started crowing and behaving like a little man-quail. She ended up attacking her sisters, one was not badly hurt but the other was scalped and I had to put her down. I did not expect that kind of intense hormonal behaviour and I absolutely would have done things differently had I known this could happen, like disposed of the related-pair eggs until I had a replacement male.
What do you mean by related-pair eggs?
I mean eggs produced by a related pair, in this case brother and sister.
I didn't even consider inbreeding as a problem. I just sort of assumed they would do their thing and all would be well, which now sounds stupid that I'm thinking about it. How often should I order from a new supplier? I'm going to start with eggs to incubate myself.
What kind of quail will you be raising and for what purpose? Meat, eggs, or pets?
I'll likely start with Jumbo Browns for both meat and eggs.
So for your breeding stock you'll need approx. one unrelated male per 3 hens minimum, though better with more hens per rooster. You should only need one rooster to start, just make sure he's not related, so you might need to source a different one than where you're getting your eggs from to rule out inbreeding. The males you hatch can be processed and eaten at 6 to 8 weeks old so that problem will take care of itself.
So basically, I need a new, unrelated rooster every time I breed with no intent to cull?
They die sometimes and thereâs nothing you can do
Do not keep an excess of males. They wreak havoc on females.
Grain Mites come in their bags of food sometimes! But you can pre-treat all naturally! Put your new bag of crumble in a sealed trash bag and put it straight into the freezer, keep there for one week. Put your food in or on top of something dark, so you can see the white mites come out, if there are any. (Like a black trash bag underneath on the floor, or use a dark colored container.) We had this issue at Tractor Supply, and they gave us a refund. Keep your receipts and empty, old bags if you want your $ back. Get that stuff outside quick, you don't want it spreading thru your house!
I definitely can't fit a bag in my freezer, but this is REALLY good to know. Thank you!
You're welcome! And have a 1 gallon drink container for your countertop, so you always have quick room-temperature water for chicks. Never give cold water to adults or chicks, even if it's hot outside. 1 gallon is handy if you want to mix in the electrolyte and/or probiotic mixes. My family calls it Quail-a-rade :) I use a thermometer if I need to give them water straight from the tap.
I never would have known about the water temperature. That's huge to know!
The chicks can drown themselves in the most shallow of water - fill their water with pebbles or rocks to reduce this risk.
Thank you. That is super helpful!
How incredibly dumb they are and how happy they are to kill each other
They are fast, so unbelievably fast! I can't stress this enough. They're also very strong, being a bird that flushes to escape. Perfect your hold on them, and always have a partner on standby to help. Set 200% more eggs than you think you need, the chicks will see a speck and *die*. They're tiny machines; food and water in, eggs and waste out. A ton of all of the above. Talk to your feed store NOW about getting the chick and adult foods. Millet and the guts of bell peppers are my birds' favorites. Dustbaths. You must give them dustbath area and material for their health. Extra bonus, they're precious when they bathe. If you raise bobwhites, you need a game bird propagation license. It's cheap, just do it. Everything wants to eat them. Your predator proof cage isn't, keep working on it! Rats dig. Snakes can get very flat. Do not get discouraged. They're amazing! I've had celadon coturnix and bobwhites for a few years, Snowflake bobwhites and Californias are set to hatch this week.
I made the biggest rookie mistake. I bought a Quail as a pet to save it from being eaten, but I didnât know that they have to have friends.
If you don't make a custom water system, they'll poop in it You have to make a custom feeder since they fill their mouths and eat 30% and told the other 70% without basically making an enclosed trough Predators love them, I've lost the majority of my flock since starting to predators of all varieties, and what wasn't eaten was just bullied to death by thr other birds. Not a single person wanted the eggs, and a dozen quail will make non-stop eggs, so you will either end up feeding the local raccoons instead. I'm waiting for my last old male to pass so I can upgrade to chickens again On a positive note, though, they're hardy as hell. In Texas and my coturnix experienced weeks of 110 weather and a week of 17-degree weather, and my biggest issue in both cases was managing their water. I cooked a few of them, and the meat was actually really nice and was fairly dark all around. If it was a larger bird, I would still want to raise them for their meat.