I’m trying to get my girls to hatch eggs naturally without the use of an incubator. I’ve read on here and talked with others that the closer you can get it to their natural environment the greater the chances are for that to happen. So I added some more pine branches, as seen in the pic...
Oh I know! I have had 6 chickens for about 4 years now (which is the original reason why I joined BYC), and they made short work of it!
So I’m not completely new to poultry, just to the quail variety. However, one of my lifelong friends, lives about 2 minutes from and he and his wife raise...
UPDATE! After scrolling through countless videos, articles and pics of quail aviary/enclosures and whatnot, here’s the my completed qual aviary or whatever you want to call it. It’s 4x7 with a roof that’s 6ft and slops down to 5ft. Only keeping 7 birds in it for now. Still have to put a skirt...
Thank you! Very good article.
I guess the one think that I didn't see there was if its recommended to have it completely covered with a solid material like wood or some type of lightweight roofing material or only partial cover it and left the rest covered with the 1/2 HW cloth.. Not sure how...
Gotcha! So as a qual expert, would you recommend not making them any taller than that or at least if I DO, make them high enough for them not to crash into the top?
Oh! I must ask, how tall are your quail enclosures exactly? I have heard that IF they are too high the birds can fly up when startled and break their necks so I don't want that to happen, but I do not want to make it so low that its harder to get into as needed.
Hello! Its been a bit since I posted on here!
But I am starting to raise quail, not just chickens now.
I have 6 of them, all hens.. Currently they are in a elevated cage but I was thinking about making them a on-ground enclosure, something like the picture attached, which is from another BYC...
I got the email too! So yeah. It’s been a while. All my flock are doing good.. Been working on my garden lately. Made it through several rounds of layoffs at my job. Kids getting older and my beard is getting longer! Kicking around the idea of raising some quell. Just haven’t sold my wife on it...
So far, so good! She’s out of the separate enclosure and adapting to things as well as starting to integrate with the rest of the flock. There’s still the occasional squabble but they usually take place for a short amount of time first thing in the morning when they are out and about eating and...
Leave him be. It’s probably just part of the ever changing pecking order that’s talking place. As long as there’s no serious injuries done to him or any other birds then there’s no need to intervene. They’ll figure it out on their own. Good luck.
Chickens are weird. The smallest things can upset them and in turn interrupt their egg laying. Has there been anything new or a change take place? Has it gotten hotter in the last days? Change in feed, etc.
Update this morning- the new girl figured out how to get over the chicken wire divider and joined the others on the roost last night. When I got up this morning all the others were out pecking and scratching in the chicken yard while she was still hanging out in the roost alone. So I moved her...
Thanks aart! Great article!
What I did yesterday evening was divided the 12x12 chicken yard/run up into two 6x12 areas via running some chicken wire down the middle. I placed the new hen “Darth Vader” (as I had a chicken that looked like her when I was a little kid and had named it that lol)...
I guess I could run some chicken wire or hardware cloth down the middle of the run to give rhe single new hen more room than just a dog kennel for a while and see how it goes after that? But how long will I need to do that for??
Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately I only have a single run and one coop. So the only way I can separate them is with a dog kennel which is big enough for a single bird.
My coop nor my run is divided either…
Maybe if there was one main bully chicken I could put it in the kennel. But...