We currently have 13 quail. We are new to all poultry and quail peaked our interest when we were researching our chickens. We Built a stacked pen with 2 separate pens. The top pen is full of our first hatch and we gathered enough hatching eggs to do another hatch and that group is down below.
From our first hatch we have 5 females and 1 male. They are wonderful egg layers and my kids absolutely looooooove their eggs. They'll go through 2 dozen in 1 sitting. However, I do not love the pens. It doesn't look awesome for them and while they don't seem to mind, I don't love it. Also, I have been having near constant behavior problems the past few weeks. It's gotten to the point where I am constantly monitoring them and then kicking myself for not separating X Y or Z sooner and finding blood all over my cage. It's not just one, they are just rotating through being the bully and the bullied. I'd have to butcher pretty much all of them. Now that my chickens are starting to lay, I am really questioning how much I want to do this. My husband has told me already he doesn't really want to keep them.
I was thinking, that maybe, they're all acting up because it's a pen and there's nothing really exciting about it. And it's hot so maybe they're irritable too. So irritable and bored. So, maybe as a last ditch effort, I could try an aviary or ground pen and see if that settles them. Makes them happier and makes me happier about their enclosures.
The thing that was attractive about the quail was the small amount of space required. I don't want something taking up as much space as the chicken coop. It will also need to be a somewhat easy. My husband is very handy, but I'm gonna have to keep it simple to get him to build me something else LOL. It would be ideal if it would be out of supplies I could get for free like pallets or something. Again, we've already build one enclosure for them. This might be a tough sell. But I think I want to try to make them happier and see if they can all live in peace in a happy, comfortable place.
Would I need an actual coop or would a few upside down crates and flower pots around suffice? We can have rough winters.
From our first hatch we have 5 females and 1 male. They are wonderful egg layers and my kids absolutely looooooove their eggs. They'll go through 2 dozen in 1 sitting. However, I do not love the pens. It doesn't look awesome for them and while they don't seem to mind, I don't love it. Also, I have been having near constant behavior problems the past few weeks. It's gotten to the point where I am constantly monitoring them and then kicking myself for not separating X Y or Z sooner and finding blood all over my cage. It's not just one, they are just rotating through being the bully and the bullied. I'd have to butcher pretty much all of them. Now that my chickens are starting to lay, I am really questioning how much I want to do this. My husband has told me already he doesn't really want to keep them.
I was thinking, that maybe, they're all acting up because it's a pen and there's nothing really exciting about it. And it's hot so maybe they're irritable too. So irritable and bored. So, maybe as a last ditch effort, I could try an aviary or ground pen and see if that settles them. Makes them happier and makes me happier about their enclosures.
The thing that was attractive about the quail was the small amount of space required. I don't want something taking up as much space as the chicken coop. It will also need to be a somewhat easy. My husband is very handy, but I'm gonna have to keep it simple to get him to build me something else LOL. It would be ideal if it would be out of supplies I could get for free like pallets or something. Again, we've already build one enclosure for them. This might be a tough sell. But I think I want to try to make them happier and see if they can all live in peace in a happy, comfortable place.
Would I need an actual coop or would a few upside down crates and flower pots around suffice? We can have rough winters.