Training quail to drink from poultry nipples

[ngennetta]

Hello all. I am experienced with chickens but new to quail. I currently only have a trio (with JMF eggs on the way). I have never had any trouble teaching chickens to use the horizontal nipples (like this), but I am unable to train the quail on them. They are about 7 weeks old. Does anyone have any advice? It would be greatly appreciated.Thank you in advance!

 

[redsoxs]

Hey...no first hand experience but I typed 'quail nipple waterer' into the BYC search box and several old thread appeared. Maybe you'll find some good advice in one of them. Good luck to you....here's the link https://www.backyardchickens.com/newsearch?search=Quail+nipples

 

[hooliganbros]

I had absolutely NO problems with my young and old quail learning the nipple water system. Make sure the tips are about 7-8" from floor. For younger chicks, you may want to place a 2x4 oh 1x4 under the nipples until they grow some.

 

[TullyRiver Quail]

There are two styles of drinker nipples (as you may know) horizontal and vertical (or "dripples" as I say). The above post mentions placing the drinker ~ 7" above the floor. This is good for verticle nipples, but not ideal with horizontal style whch sould be about 3-4" off the floor.

Hello all. I am experienced with chickens but new to quail. I currently only have a trio (with JMF eggs on the way). I have never had any trouble teaching chickens to use the horizontal nipples (like this), but I am unable to train the quail on them. They are about 7 weeks old. Does anyone have any advice? It would be greatly appreciated.Thank you in advance!

When we introduce newbies to our horizontal winter nipple system (see TullyRiverQuail YouTube) from our Summer "cup" style, I have a process I go through. First I stop the water to the cups and block access. Second I hot glue horizontal nipples to a small grapefruit container that I've painter milky white so A) they can see the water and B they focus on the red cross nipples. I use this as a training drinker. To entice any resistant birds, I will place a small leaved twig around the nipple wh8ch attracts their peckers. Think mimosa leaves or we use moringa trees which are really healthy (see "miracle tree). I've read that others taint their water with a little apple juice making drinking a tasty treat.

We use both horizontal and verticle nipples in our winter water heated circulating water system. The problem with the vertical nipples in the winter is although they are easier to thaw or free up in extreme cold, they do drip each tike a bird bumps them... intentionally or not. This wets the floor and some folks have stated they've had birds actually quick freeze to the floor below the drinker in super extreme low temps. We have two winter water systems (shown in our YouTube channel, running on both 110v and total solar. We also make and sell special "winter freeze resistant drinker cartidges" made from 1" ID x 18" Flexible thick pvc tubing with 4 -5 horizontal nipples spaced for 1" cage wire. These are beneficial because the greater water volume from our circulated >40° heated water source (thermally controlled) surrounds the embedded nipple such that the mechanism for the nipple is never lower than °40. These moint outside the cage and are held by a spring fastening so that should they need to be de-iced, you can easily remove it from the cage if necessary pending placement vs reaching into the back of the cage with a hair dryer or screwdriver ice pick.

Try the above tricks to train your Quail to not only use drinker nipples, but to love them... you will love not cleaning drinker cups as well.

Doc & Denise
Tully River Quail Company
Reading PA


















































































































































































































































































































When we change out our Summer drinker syste m (cups)