getting my quails on friday

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karminski

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yippee i have finally given in and i am of to collect 6 little quails on friday i cant wait :D :D from chookiechock shes been on here a few times cant wait to meet her and see all her birds its going to be so much fun and i wont coem home with to many promise :lol: . so for the time being they will live in the large rabbit hutch which over the next few weeks will have a another run attached to it { umm more projects } :roll:
what do you guys use as feeders and water bowls ? as mine will be in a rabbit hutch i was thinking of using plant trays { small ones } with pebbles in for water and a large seed tray filled with dried dirt or the silver sand if i ever remember to leave it out to dry as i keep on forgetting about it :lol: these bowls and feed bowl will be ontop of little peices of slabs to prevent as much bedding going in them as poss and i will be using paper bedding :)
 
Congratulations, I'm sure you'll enjoy them, how exciting!
For drinkers I've found these to be the best kind http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2-EXTRA-LARGE-ANTI-ALGAE-BLUE-WEEKEND-CAGE-BIRD-DRINKER-/330780223091?pt=UK_Pet_Supplies_Birds&hash=item4d0409a673#ht_500wt_689 - there's are several versions, just to on eBay and search under Pet Supplies and Bird Drinkers and various ones will come up. Many people use rabbit bottles but I think these are better as the quails can get a proper drink without banging away at a bottle all the time, and also the water stays poo free and the drinker takes up no room in the cage as it pokes theough the bars with the reservoir outside the cage. If you use a plant tray with pebbles they will immediately poo in it. You may need to adapt the plastic ring which holds the drinker in place, depending on the type of wire your cage has, but these are much easier to fix in position than bottles.
For food I use a chick feeder placed in a bowl with quite high sides, so they can just climb in. I found that without the bowl they just scattered it all over the cage and wasted nearly all of it. They do scratch the food out of the feeder but it mostly stays in the bowl and doesn't get so messy.
For a dust bath you need quite a heavy china bowl with vertical sides about 3 inches high. They love dust bathing and if you have a lightweight shallow bowl like a seed tray it will all be everywhere within 5 minutes. I use play sand from Homebase, it's very clean. If it comes damp just spread it out on a tray in the sun, or if not sunny put it in a baking dish in the oven for 15 minutes then let it cool down of course.
Don't forget they need grit, just like chickens do. You can get grit for cage birds which also has oystershell in it, the right size for small birds. Chicken grit and shell would be too big for them.
Not sure what you mean by paper bedding, do you mean shredded paper? I've tried wood shavings, straw pellets, and when mine go back into cages in the autumn i shall probably use Aubiose as I've got lots of it now for the hens and it's so absorbent. The one drawback about quails is that they do get smelly and because the poos are so small and squidgy you can't poo pick like you can with hens, so they do need cleaning out rather often if they are to stay clean and not get poo balls on their feet.
Also make sure to have a supply of antibiotic powder for birds in case they fight at first or in case the male damages the females, if you're going to get a male. Better safe than sorry!
I'm getting so many eggs from mine that I'm feeding them back to the chickens as a bit of extra protein, who are just coming through their moult. Quail eggs go in one end and come out as hens eggs at the other, pretty amazing, hey!
Looking forward to those first photos. Give my best wishes to Chookiechook and say I'm looking forward to reading her new book about quails when it comes out soon.
 
thanks for all that marigold :D i do have large china dog bowls as i use them for the big girls so i am sure they wont mind missing them :lol: i have silver sand as i used to use that for my chincillas years ago and its really good stuff .
the paper is from my local bird centre and as its completely dust free i now use that for the girls and i put one of my horses on it yesterday and mucked him out this morning and i was impressed with what i took out ,so now i am not use what to use as i have one horse on aubriose and one on paper and i dont know what i prefer :-)05 :-)05 plus thing with paper is although it composted really quickly i can also burn it so even less waste to find somewhere to store it .
 
I found it made it easier to clean out the cages and change the bedding if I lined the cage floor with an offcut of sheet vinyl floor covering. Then you can just slide out the whole lot, bend the vinyl and tip it all into a bucket.
They also like somewhere to hide under and lay their eggs in - at first I used a small cut- down open-fronted cardboard box and threw it away when it got dirty, but now they have those plastic dome things you can get for small mammal cages in Pets at Home. I cut the doorway a bit bigger and they spend quite a bit of time in there, although they don't really go to roost like chickens do. They laid their eggs all over the place at first, but nowadays mine do usually lay them under one of the domes, which makes them easier to find and collect, especially if they're on deep bedding in cages where the eggs get lost sometimes.
 
its funny you saying about the powder as i brought a new tub the other day :lol: as for the shelter i have those plastic post boxes i use for nest boxes they already have holes cut into the sides and handles all i need to do is saw of the bit you hold and the opening is already there 2 at each end will do a pic later :)
 
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