Outside pen

Hi thougth you might like to see my outdoor pen, quails guarded by Indie!!!





Hugs
Batty XxX

Hey you have the same hutch as me. Mines on slabs with hemcore though as Ineed to keep what little grass I have left

Wow that's wonderful - and so is your gorgeous garden. May I be cheeky and ask where you got it - was it mail order. I need to be thinking of getting more housing before long

Oh the house was off ebay £96.00 inc postage i thought that was pretty good, i'll ask hubby about seller he bought it a couple of weeks back and they had tons. He bought a cat tower from the seller this week. Good grief it's taller than me (i'm only 5ft 2") and huge, but the mogs love it so i know thry are still selling stuff, i'll post details here.

Thanks
I love my garden and spend ages growing flowers and herbs to go in it, but it looks a bit sad at the mo, dogs have been digging and flowers are waiting a bit. I am kinda lucky as although it is not that wide it's about 120ft long so quite a bit of room.

Hugs
Batty XxX

This is what it should look like soon, fingers crossed XxX

Stunning and not overlooked either - have you been there long? I love the tiered affect - and those borders are wonderful.

I mainly have perennials in my beds - the chickens free range so leave them alone - plus I have a 330ft x 33ft allotment to look after! Keeps me busy.

Wow Lottie you are a busy thing, i would love an allotment, but with Fairiechild to keep me busy i don't get much time to spare.

We have been here 7 years which have flown past, but when we moved in it was like a jungle, it has taken lots of hard work. We filled 2 big skips with junk and rubbish and dead plants etc and cleared the lot. The top half was terrible you had to push to get into it we cut down so many Elders, but we have planted more and more trees back, coz i did feel guilty. Now i am chaging the top half so i can have a mini orchard up there with lots of fruit trees and bushes. Funny you know, i live on a main road!

Thank you though, i do love my garden

Hugs
Batty XxX

Well you may live on a main road - but you have created a tranquil countryside in your own garden - and trees cut down noise amazingly.

Your garden is enchanting.

Hi there
The hutch was from Albany Pets on Ebay and was £96.00 including delivery, which we thought was really good. Look through the listings though as some are listed cheaper than others.

Batty XxX

I got new pens, i got new pens. My hubby came home tonight with a car full of new pens. He works away at times and Albany Pets was on his way home and i now have a bigger chuck pen and a "rabbit circus" as i am calling it. I can't wait to get them put together and out so all the gang can go out and about, they come with the promise of some CPQ's and maybe Bantams. YIPPPPPPEEEEEEEEE!

Once they are up i will post some piccys, oh i am a lucky girl with a very nice Husband.

Hugs
Batty XxX

Wow - so very happy for you - how many do you have now?

Can't wait to see the pics Batty - and your garden is gorgeous.

I have one indoor pen, one large outdoor hutch, one outdoor hutch with a run, one "rabbit circus" and a bigger outdoor chuck hutch and higher run. Quite a set i think

Thanks Harrie, i do love my garden, its taken ages to get it right and now we are changing it as we are planning an orchard at the back bit, there is another 10-15ft behind the greenhouse that is just a junk space. It will be a mini orchard, but nice i think.

Very happy girl though
Batty XxX

I see a big difference in housing quail between the UK and the US. Seems to me the European style is a fancy Hutch. Here in the US most quail housing is similar to these.

Mark

hello mark welcome i just love your set up hole grand i would love to have a few of these in my garden lol. regards joy

Wow Mark - nice to have you on here - and thank you for sharing your amazing photos of your quail house.

Just a few questions as I am a total beginner. I see that your house is on grass but just wondered why the birds are on mesh. I guess it is for easier cleaning - and the droppings fall down onto the grass - and of course rodents won't be able to get in is that right?

Have you hatched out hundreds of birds at the same time to have such a large flock? I only ask because I understood that you could not introduce birds/groups.

Is this done on a commercial basis i.e. for selling as pets, for shoots, eggs or meat?

Do they just lay eggs all over the mesh and you go in to collect them i.e. is the mesh strong enough to take the weight of people walking on it.

Do you move the house around or is it in permanent site - if so how do you get rid of all the excrement from underneath the mesh - it must build up after a time.

The row of feeding trays is something I have never ever seen before - amazing!

If ever we win the lottery I would have a huge house like that or lots of smaller ones on a similar style.

I guess our houses over here are governed by (a) by the limited space most of us have - our gardens are not often huge. In fact a lot of us has small gardens - and in comparison to yours - tiny even!

(b) We tend to be hobbyists so do things on a smaller scale.

I also imagine that another difference is that quail are wild game birds in the USA whereas they are not in the UK and must not be released into the wild either.

And perhaps our weather has a lot to do with it too.

Thanks so much for giving us an insight into your wonderful quails housing - I am sure that we are all envious.

Best wishes

Mark I think its a space thing. If I had room for a house that size I would move into it myself so Instead its a smaller quail house with a lot less quails. I do feel their lives are enriched though as I have made an effort to give them things such as hideyholes and undergrowth.

Bronze wrote:Mark I think its a space thing. If I had room for a house that size I would move into it myself so Instead its a smaller quail house with a lot less quails. I do feel their lives are enriched though as I have made an effort to give them things such as hideyholes and undergrowth.

You put it so eloquently Bronze - that is what I was trying to say. With our little gardens most of us just don't have the room do we - but oh how we would love too.

So those of us with 'flocks' of 5 or so - they are just like pets.

Here is a short cut link to my outside mini aviaries with my chicken house in the background.

http://kooringa.com/?cat=37&paged=2

If you click on my link in my signature - you can see more under the heading 'Quail' in the category section.

I do lease a quarter of an acre plot in a field a mile away from me - but I could not have quail up there - too many predators and it is not at all practical.

Until then - I can come back on here and keep looking at Mark's and day dreaming.

Sorry Lottie I didnt even see your post for some reason I forget to 'turn the page'.

whats on your field. You need pigs! If you do get pigs we would be interested on a deal

Sorry back on track

Its only a quarter of an acre - and it is my allotment - so I am almost self sufficient veggie and fruit wise!

Hard work - but I love it!

First off, thanks for the complements, but that was just a sample of the flight pens, that one is not mine. We do build them elevated to help with the droppings and predators. my neighbor and I built one very similar to the photos I posted. I have a co-worker that raises bobwhites for dog trials and bird hunts, his flight pens are inside a barn that is 100' x 200', he raises around 20,000 a year.

mark

That is bigger than the whole plot my bungalow and garden is on

I agree with Mark. Most of the people that I have talked with over the WEB from the USA raise quail for hunting, eggs, and eating. Therefore, they do it large. I am a second grade teacher who got into this teaching life cycles. I got a little "Chick Bater" with 12 Bobwhite eggs this spring. None of them hatched. Being of the stubborn sort, I made my own incubator from a website design from an old soda cooler and ordered some Cortunix eggs from eBay. 9 out of the 12 eggs were fertile and 8 hatched. Because of predators, like black bear (yes we do have wildlife in New Jersey!), fox, coyote, and lots of wild cats, I will be keeping my babies inside. I have an acre of ground (about 200X200 feet), so I could put them outside, but the bears in our area have been a problem with poultry.
Sorry to ramble away form the subject. Well, anyway, I found it very difficult to find information about Cortunix raising from the pet point of view. That's what brought me to this forum. I have my quail in a 30 inch by 18 inch bird cage right now. I have a second cage for when I divide them up. I got the cage on eBay. It was ok except the floor had 1/2 inch by 3 inch grate and their little legs kept going through and they would thrash about. So, today I "repaired" it and replaced the bottom with 1/2 inch mesh. They like it a lot better. I have a lot of little videos and pictures on my web at http://tuesdaynewsday.blogspot.com

Looks a pretty nice size, QTPie, but would it be possible to have them on a solid floor with shavings rather than the wire? Quail love to dustbath, and the wire floors can allow them to get Bumblefoot (a painful infection).

internet_nobody wrote:Looks a pretty nice size, QTPie, but would it be possible to have them on a solid floor with shavings rather than the wire? Quail love to dustbath, and the wire floors can allow them to get Bumblefoot (a painful infection).

Now that I've had this cage for a while I can see your point. The poor little guys try to dust bathe in their food! I just recently put in some "sod" that I grew and they seem a bit more content. On one of the posts I saw your set up with the indoor cages you built. I like how the plastic pans come up the sides so that poop doesn't get all over the floor. How often do you have to clean them out using shavings? I am using the corn husks and am not happy with odor control. I am starting to rethink my plan here and would appreciate any input about what kind of play things that quails like to have in their cages. I also am thinking of something that I could put outside that is bear proof. Any thoughts?