f 200Quail Chicks

[daleh]

Just picked up my first batch 2000 chicks over the weekend. I am raising them in home-made brooder boxes. for pre-release on the shooting preserve part.

[Phil from Maine]

Sounds like you are getting off to a good start Dale !! I have been hatching out pheasants up here to let my dogs hunt them in the fall.. Good Luck on the quail, up this way they do not do so good....

[daleh]

Raising game birds is one of hardest things i ever had to figure out.
keeping them at a consistant 100 F with the outside temp. here going from 95 in the day down to 66 at night was one big challenge. they don't know how to eat so you have to trick them into it. Also my food crumbles were toolarge and had to put it into a blender. I am brooding 750 in a home-made brooder inside my shop. The big brooder has expirenced the most lost. The 10 brooder/ release boxes outside have done pretty well after the fire ant problem was fixed.

[Phil from Maine]

One of the things that I have found out after reading up on them is to round the corners out in the brooding boxes as well as the flight pens or what have you. This is to keep them from bunching up inside and smother each other. Also just try and heat up an area of the box that can cover enough room for all of them to keep warm and a place they can move to that will allow them to cool down if needed. Good Luck...

[spuddog]

I raised 25 quail a couple years ago. I hatched them from eggs. I did what Phil did and put a light in one corner of the box and let them go where they wanted. Didn't have any problems. I just had to dip their beaks in the food and water and they did the rest themselved.

Spud

[daleh]

one of the things i will do next time is put a piece of cardboard in each box to round the corners. it helps to keep the chicks from smothering each other.
anyways loss is down to a min. for now and at 10 days old they have started puting on good feathers and can fly about 1 ft off the ground