My coturnix pen from start to finish...

[Trapper Luke]

Well finally got my coturnix quail pens done! If only I had some quail! (Eggs are on the way!

)

This is what I started with

Some framing done!

Starting to look like a pen now!

Got some foam on the roof to stop them from hurting themselves!

Couple pics with wats gonna be the feeder on upper shelf and the sand box

The final product!!

Will still be adding a hidey hole, a hanging PCV waterer and adding the deep litter goodness to the bottom but other than that, that's all. I think instead of the egg carton style foam padding I'll just buy some construction foam board instead!! These are my first coturnix pens I've built so if there's anything I should do different any ideas or tips will be appreciated!!

Thanks for looking!
Luke

 

[DK newbie]

Looks good! Are you going to add a board or something for them to get to the top shelf? They are able to fly, but usually only do so if they are frightened, so having their feed all the way up there might not be ideal. You might also want to consider padding the shelf so they don't boink into that.

 

[Trapper Luke]

Yea once I finish building a hidey hole box deal for them I was gonna put a board from the top of the hidey hole up to the shelf so the angle of the board not quite so steep. I wasn't real sure bout how much they'd use the feeder up there so I didn't make it permanent, it's movable. I just made it so it couldn't roll around up there. After I put the deep litter material in its only gonna be bout 11-12" from the bottom of that shelf to the deep litter think that's still enough they can fly up and boink their noggins?

 

[DK newbie]

In general, people say 12 inches is fine. But I recently read a post on here where someone said something about having found a bloody spot on their ~12 inch hut where their quail had boinked. So I suppose it's possible for them to gain enough speed to get hurt even at 12 inches, though they probably won't get killed. And I guess the quail in question could have been hurt by a cage mate and then boinked afterwards, leaving the bloody mark..