I'm in charge of wildlife development on my uncle's 3,755 acres of strip mine property in Southern IL. I wanted to share with you some ideas on helping quail with population. I've already put in about 30 acres of food plots, but have more to go, I just keep tearing up equipment with all the large boulders in the dirt. I've done the release / recall, etc. but it's just simple, pen raised birds don't make it a full year in the wild, most don't make it 4-6 weeks.

Well, I've built feeders to assist the quail while they teach themselves foraging capabilities. You'll want to place this somewhat close to a food source or food plot when done.

Take a standard 5 gallon bucket with lid. Clean out completely. Drill 4 holes on the bottom to be able to slide 1 1/4" pvc into. Cut 3" sections of 1 1/4" PVC that will be slid into the holes. Cut the outside at a 45 degree angle to keep rain out. You can use silicone or liquid nail to hold the pvc in the bucket. Fill with seed, cover. You may want to have small guage chain on the handle to help with hanging the bucket.

Take two wooden Pallets. Lean them on each other to make an "A" frame. Be sure that the wooden slats are running vertical, so that quail can quickly run between the slats to safety if being chased by a predator. Take a 2 x 4 about 6 inches long and screw it at the top to hold the A frame together. Then take another 2 x 4 and make that the lower cross member to make the "A" frame even stronger. Then you will take wire fence with large 4-6" holes so that quail can get into the area and preditors cannot, nor can deer get to the food. You can also use more 2 x4's across the opening. Do these to the other side as well.

Then you can hang your feeder in the middle of this A frame with the chain. You'll want to have the bottom of the bucket 4-5 inches off the ground so it can help keeping rodents, crawling insects, mud, etc out.

I don't have a construction photo, but you can see the end result here in the photo below. Cheers,
joel

nice, I like that.