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Keeping Quail?
What would be suitable housing for quail?
What are the best breed for good egg producing?
What do you feed them?
Thanks,
Chef
I keep Japanese and Italian Quail, they are fantastic egg producers. Once they start in the spring they lay every day until around end of August and then start to lay as and when. Some people give them artificial light in the winter to try and prolong the laying season but I am a believer in letting nature take its course and let them have a rest until spring.
When they are young you start them off on chick crumbs and then move onto the small sized chicken growers and then layers. I also give mine cuttle fish and vegetables. I grow my own sunflowers so they get the sunflower seeds once they have dried out too. You can get specially formulated quail mix but I have never found it any better than the chicken feed.
Thanks,
Chef
Also, do they make much noise? Not that they can make any more noise than the kids next door, but still..
Thanks for any advice!
Melanie
The males do a call noise if alarmed or mating but not much louder than a garden bird noise really, just a trill noise, nothing at all like our cockerels can produce!
I keep mine in an insulated shed, with windows and plenty of ventalition. They are kept in cages with a sloping wire floor (so the eggs roll to the front). They are 2ft sq. and i have between 4-5 quail in each. I am destocking for the winter though, so just down to 1 male and 4 females which are going in november. I got my first lot at 4 weeks old and kept them under a heat lamp for 2 weeks indoors due to it being October time last year.. so chilly. Then they were put outside into a rabbit/chicken run (house 2x3ft, run 3x3ft) but this had a opening upwards lid which i had to put mesh on as they would fly upwards when frightened e.g. everytime i opened the lid. They also lay anywhere and do not go to roost... you have to put them away each night, as in shoo them in and they are quick flighty things.
When they got to 8 weeks old, we had made them their indoor accomadtion and grouped them into 1 male and 3 females and 2 males on their own. By march the 2 males were getting quite sexually active and the runt needed to be culled (and eaten) as it was being bullied/mounted. I then incubated and hatched 6 quails, keeping 4 females to go in with the unrelated male.
They were japense quail, very good layers, though mine were noisy. You dont need males if you dont want to breed, in theory the females are meant to lay better as they arent stressed by a randy male jumping them every 5 minutes.. really is that bad
They are very interesting birds to keep and I will be getting more stock next spring.. just need their shed to put one of my older rabbits in over winter and be good to disinfect everything.
They do need protection from the wind and rain, as they dont seem to go in from it and get cold very quick, in the winter i gave mine a hot water bottle (it was made out of stone).
i keep jumbo itlian quail and get 2 eggs a day most days and 1 on some days from march tolate octobre with no extra lighting
they are all in some form of rabbit hutch
I am amazed Pel, that yours are more noisey than your cockerels, mine certainly aren't. Is that because you keep them indoors and the noise is echoey do you think? Mine are always a bit flightly too when they are young but I handle them alot and even though you can never tame them like a chicken they do get used to you at feeding times and my cleaning out routine etc.
Why are you getting rid of them over winter? They will still lay next year if they are only a year old....?
If you bring them up in groups they should accept more than one male in a pen, I have two males with 10 females and they all get on just fine.
They are a bit stupid when it comes to rain, but I have a house which thye go in and out as they please, and a run which is partly mesh and partly covered and even though they may sit outside when its raining they are usually undercover. I don't shut mine in the house at night, they just go in when they are ready as the house and run are all secure so nothing can get to them overnight. They seem to like it that way as then they can come out really early in the morning which is what they seem to prefer to do.
I need the accomadation that they are taking up, though their pens will stay where they are, but my rabbit hutch needs to go in there. I've also got a one other thing planned for spring time which will take up quite a bit of my time. Quails dont take long to feed or anything, but they are the easiest to sell, (which is great).
I'd also like to start from scratch again, probably get japense again, but it does give me the option to choose a different type of quail.
Yes, if you have enough females in one group then you can have more than one male, i prefectly agree with that. however if you have two males alone or too few females for them they do start bullying each other. Even though the size of my pens according to DEFRA regulations I could fit 20 birds in each.. no idea how they are meant to move, I wouldnt go past 4 or 5 in each group, so i think 3 or 4 females would only really keep one male happy.
Forgot to add mine are fed on layer mash when old enough, though my 2nd group the younger ones make a right old mess picking out their favorite bits, whilst the oldies just seem to eat the majority of it. The feed stores round by me dont have anything ground smaller.
Found this american link about keeping quail, hope its helpful