space wooden floor

[gmatton]

Hello all,

I wanted to build a new quail-housing. I don't want to use the mesh-wire floor as it bends to much so I have trouble getting my eggs rolling to the front for collecting. I found some information of people using wooden slats floor. But no information about the spacing between the slats and how wide are the slats. Can anybody help me? Or anybody has been using a cage with wooden floor?

Greetings,

Gerrit

 

[falconertomt]

Welcome to BYC!

I do not have personal experience with wood slat floors, but you will want the spaces to be ~1/2-5/8" (13-16mm). Too much bigger and your egss will start to fall through, too much smaller and your poop will not fall through. You also want to make sure that you slats are not so wide that you get poo buildup on them were I going that route, I would probably use a 1/2" gap with a 1/4" slat.

I used Blue Hawk 16ga 1/2"x1" wire mesh on mine, and then put a support bar across the middle, and it works really well. Just make sure you orient the wires so that the ones running along the slope are on top. I will post some pics of what I have when I get home tonight.

 

[James the Bald]

I once had the same problem, but I found a solution. For all of my cages, I use 1" x 1/2" wire fence. It comes in a 30" x 10' roll of 16 gauge welded wire and is strong enough for a rabbit cage, so I figure it would work just as well for quail. I have retrofitted the flooring for all but 3 cages with this wire fence. If you do find it, you may want to pay attention when you make your cage(s) that you put the side that has the 1/2" part on the top so it won't bother your quails feet.
Tractor Supply Company carries it, and only sells it in their store, but I'm sure if you look you may find somebody that carries it locally, or somewhere that offers it online.
James

 

[gmatton]

Thanks Falconertomt, hope to see those pics.

 

[gmatton]

My problem is that I don't live now in the US, but am working in Uganda. And they don't sell this wire-fence, they have only the bigger ones with 2,5 inch squares (quails falls strait through) or the really small one that the use to make plaster ceilings. So that is why I am looking for a wooden solutions.

 

[falconertomt]

Here is the one that I built:







It has a 2" rise over a 24" run, (5cm rise over 61cm run). You can kinda see the center bar that runs through the middle to help support the wire.


Yours I would build something like this:


With the slats being 1/4" (~5mm) thick, about 1" (~2cm) tall and however long, spaced about 1/2" (~1cm) wide. You probably will not need as steep a rise as I used, because your eggs will meet less resistance as they roll down the floor. Post pics when you get them done. I am curious to see how it works.