Thinking about raising quail

[Jaye]

Lovely birds, @kenya ! Pardon my newbie question, but are they Coturnix? If so, what varieties are they?

[Jaye]

I'm wondering about housing requirements if quail are kept in an outdoor coop_run? I'm planning on modifying a small coop_run that was originally going to be a quarantine space for chickens. It's about 3ft by 6ft in total, and about half of it is coop. It's raised so that there is extra run space underneath the coop. I have been reading that quail don't like using ramps or going up into a raised coop because they are ground dwellers, so we will need to make some modifications to what we have. Should we just start over and reuse the materials but build a smaller coop area and larger run?

[baronrenfrew]

An outdoor run for coturnix? Good luck finding the eggs. Its rare to find outdoor coops on ground for quail as they are not as resistent to parasites/coccidiosis as other "domestic" birds.

[Jaye]

We'd be building ours. Actually, modifying one that's already framed in, just needs welded wire fencing attached after raising it up and adding a bottom that will handle deep litter, so about a 12 inch high "tray".
I'm hoping that they will lay in the hidey holes we provide, such as under a log on bricks, a cedar bough or clay pots placed on their side. It will only be about a 3' x3' area, with roof on hinges for top access, as well as side access.

[JimW]

Coturnix Quail have pretty much lost all of their nesting instincts, they basically just lay an egg anywhere and continue on their way. Many male coturnix quails are quite aggressive when breeding, they will fight other males pecking their head and eyes, and they are hard on females pulling out head feathers. So if you have multiple males together keep a good eye on them and make sure you have enough females per male.

We just keep our quail in cages with wire mesh floors and trays, with slanted floor so the eggs roll out the front of the cage for ease of care and they do very well. Everything loves to eat quail and the birds are not very smart, in my old set up I had a weasel get through the 1" x 2" wire and kill most of my birds and another time I had a few quail in an outdoor cage eaten by a raccoon pulling them through the wire mesh in pieces. So make sure you have very secure housing.

We have found they grow quicker and bigger on high protein food, we feed a 30% non-medicated gamebird starter until they start to lay, then switch to a slightly lower (22% in think) protein food with more calcium.

Best of luck. We love their eggs to eat, I don't know if I believe all the health claims of quail eggs, but don't really care, they taste good. The extra males we hatch are great eating as well.

JimW

[Jaye]

Thanks for posting, JimW ... lots of useful info, much appreciated. We love quail eggs too, which is one of the reasons why I started looking into raising them myself. The going rate for 30 quail eggs in this general area is $10 - which is not a bad price - but if I had my own quad (one male, three females), then, in theory, they can supply us with about 15 eggs a week, which would be fine for the two of us. However, unless we supplement lighting we wouldn't have any/many during the winter months.
So, these cages that you have your quail in, how high are they? I'm asking because I've read that quail sometimes shoot straight up when startled, and can break their necks or fracture their skulls if the ceiling is too low or inflexible. We would like to have our run high enough that they won't injure themselves, but want to be able to save on the amount of welding wire we will need; i.e., if they don't need 4' high, then we with go with 3'.
Do you keep your cages outside in the winter or do you have them in a garage or shed or some other type of outbuilding? If they are on wire bottom, would that be too cold for them outside in the winter?
I've been following a blogger in WA that raises quail, using the deep litter method. During the winter months, she just adds lots of straw to all the living areas and encloses the run with plastic to keep snow and wind out. I know WA doesn't get near as cold as here, but I thought I'd give it a try.
BTW, I was wrong about the base dimensions of the coop/run: it's actually 3' by 8', half of which will be coop, half of the coop will be a storage area for feed, bedding, etc. That's the plan, anyway. Hubby has promised to have it done by next Saturday.
Thanks to Baronrenfrew, I have my quail group from Lisa Ellis lined up for pickup next weekend. Exciting! Yep, you guessed it: one of the outdoor projects has been put on hold, because, hey, building a coop_run for quail is more fun. Hubby took zero convincing to move it up in priority.

[kenya]

My quail are cortunix quail, golden. Apparently only the cortunix quail eggs are good for allergies. My quail laid an egg all winter, no extra light in the garage.

[JimW]

Jaye,

I keep my quail cages in a small shed I build just for the cages, it is 6 feet by 3 feet. My cages are not very tall, 7 or 8 inches maybe, so the quail cannot fly up and smash their head.

I have a stack of 4 cages, 36" x 16" with trays underneath. The cages have an external food hopper that hangs on the front and an automatic water dishes on the outside that the quail stick the head thru the 1"x2" mesh to drink, keeps the water dish clean. In the winter I have to use different water dishes as the auto system freezes.

[kenya]

JimW nice set up!

[baronrenfrew]

Jim also spent money (and hassle) to get that cage setup: he drove to Quebec somewhere to get it. I think a set like that is near $800. In my opinion, its worth every penny: i've messed around with crappy old rabbit cages and they are just a big PITA.

GQF (Georgia Quail Farm) is a prominent American manufacturer of quail supplies but will not ship to Canada. Canadian purchases are to be made from a CDN retailer such as berryhill.ca