Baby quail brooder setup

[Jener8or]

To the quail experts: at what age can you start feeding quail boiled eggs for extra protein?

You can feed them boiled or scrambled eggs pretty much at any time. Just make sure the pieces are small enough for them to eat.

 

[Ray987]

Hello again

Quails are doing great but there's a lot of poop! I'm changing the sheets couple times a day and it only takes an hour for them to make it a poop bath, the only option i can use is Wheat hay because that's the only clean bedding i can get ( I couldn't get my hand on clean sanitized pine shavings) all the shavings here is collected off the floor would such shavings be ok? If not is wheat hay ok to use?

 

[Jener8or]

Hello again

Quails are doing great but there's a lot of poop! I'm changing the sheets couple times a day and it only takes an hour for them to make it a poop bath, the only option i can use is Wheat hay because that's the only clean bedding i can get ( I couldn't get my hand on clean sanitized pine shavings) all the shavings here is collected off the floor would such shavings be ok? If not is wheat hay ok to use?

Yeah, you could try wheat hay. I would just make sure it isn't moldy and it should be fine.

 

[Ray987]

Yeah, you could try wheat hay. I would just make sure it isn't moldy and it should be fine.

I switched to hay this morning and I got one chick with one eye shut (not swelled he can open it) and watery diarrhea, not sure if it's the hay or because the brooder is too small, there's a lot of poop everywhere and I'm trying keep it clean but it literally takes them 30 minutes to fill it with poop again, there's an awful smell every hour or so If I don't change the bedding, i isolated the chick, should i treat them all for coccidia or what do you suggest?

 

[Ray987]

Update: seems like wheat hay was a terrible choice, one chick got a shred of hay into his eye and 2 others with respiratory issues, I had to drive 50 miles to find them clean pine shavings luckily and replaced the hay now they're eating the shavings hope it doesn't cause issues

 

[Jener8or]

Update: seems like wheat hay was a terrible choice, one chick got a shred of hay into his eye and 2 others with respiratory issues, I had to drive 50 miles to find them clean pine shavings luckily and replaced the hay now they're eating the shavings hope it doesn't cause issues

Can you find them chick grit? The shavings will be fine if they have grit to help them digest any that gets eaten. I'm glad you were able to find pine shavings for them! Sorry I didn't see the alert on your other post.

 

[Ray987]

Can you find them chick grit? The shavings will be fine if they have grit to help them digest any that gets eaten. I'm glad you were able to find pine shavings for them! Sorry I didn't see the alert on your other post.

Honestly I don't think I can find grit unless i can get it somewhere outside in the nature, whenever I ask a store about grit they're like huh? I'll keep looking tho, and no worries thanks for your help as always!

 

[Ray987]

Hello again!

I wanna ask how often do you change the bedding? I've been just adding a layer shavings on top whenever it gets smelly in there instead of cleaning it all out and adding new shavings but darn they poop a lot and it only takes 1-2 hours to smell awful in there, does the smell harm them if I don't change it that often? I think I have around 150 quails in there and it's crowded but I have no other place to brood them, my huge quail room gonna take another 10-15 days to be ready : (

 

[Jener8or]

I don't think that high levels of ammonia are good for them. I would just keep adding carbon to balance the poop out when it starts to smell and change it 1-2 times a day, if that seems to work. I think it just depends on the amount of space they have that would determine how often you need to change it. Can you set up 2 brooders or a bigger space? I hope all, besides that, is going well!

 

[Ray987]

I don't think that high levels of ammonia are good for them. I would just keep adding carbon to balance the poop out when it starts to smell and change it 1-2 times a day, if that seems to work. I think it just depends on the amount of space they have that would determine how often you need to change it. Can you set up 2 brooders or a bigger space? I hope all, besides that, is going well!

Carbon? What's that and where do we get it?
Sadly I don't have enough material to build a 2nd brooder and it'll take time to get it too so I'm stuck with what I got, I'll keep changing the bedding often then until their new playground is ready thank you! Everything is going well they're doing great after i switched from hay to pine shavings, they're eating a bit of the shavings when their their food run out so I'm trying to keep the feeders full