Quail Brooding???

[Mike Cutler]

Well, this outta be pretty much way off topic but I know that there is a wide diversity of folks here on the board. Hopefully I can get a little knowledge as I've never raised quail, or chickens in my life:eek:.

A little background;
I bought 100, 1 day old quail chicks by mail a few weeks back to train my new Vizsla this fall. Three weeks ago to be exact. They are in a brooding chamber of a design I got from a Quail Forum. The brooder is 5' long 19" tall and 15" wide and divided into two equal size compartments. They are being brooded with a 250 watt brooder lamp from Tractor supply, hooked up to a programable thermostat. They have been on medicated layer crumbles since I got them. Water and litter are cleaned daily. They are kept in my shop right now, which is very quiet, and has only a small amount of ambient light.

Everything was going great for the first 3 or 4 days and then all of the sudden I started to lose chicks, 6-10 a night for about 4 days. (By my estimate I'm at about 60 quail right now.). It stopped as suddenly as it started,and I've only lost a couple since then. The ones I have brooded to this point appear to be pretty healthy and are trying to fly in the brooder right now. They seemed to run around in frenzy and trample each other during this time.

In the next few weeks they will be transferred to a 16'x20' pole barn on my property I have never used, sort of a giant, permanent "Johnny House", along with 10 other quail I have had in there for a few months.

My questions, finally, are. What could be the cause of the mortality rate of the chicks in days 4-7, and what can I do to prevent it next time? Secondly, how should I best go about introducing them to their new environment so as to not stress them and possibly begin to lose chicks again? Third, is it possible to winter over quail in southern New England in my barn, and how should I set it up?

I hope no one is offended that I intend to shoot these birds while training my dog.
It's a lot of work for birds I do intend to shoot someday, but a young pointer needs birds right?

TIA
Mike.

[Michael Schapansky]

That's a lot of losses. I haven't raised quail, but I've raised hundreds of meat birds, layers and other assorted fowl.

I'm wondering if the laying mash could be the problem. That has a higher calcium content for egg production. Tractor supply also has game bird feed that has much higher protein feed specifically for game birds. (layer has 16 percent, gamebird goes up to 24 percent). I use a bag of medicated once in a great while because I raise goats and poultry and they can trade coccidosis which is also communicable to humans. The only other thing I can think of may be related more to my part of the country. A heat lamp would be necessary and only just so at night here. In central Texas we've had 43 days out of the last 45 over a hundred degrees. With chicken chicks you want to keep them about a hundred degrees. I'm guessing the quail would be similar. I'd have to run a fan on them around here to keep the temps down low enough.

Hope this helps.

[Robert McGowen]

Raised a bunch of chickens, some geese, and some turkeys, but no quail. With that in mind, I am guessing two causes:

It could be your brooder, if it is square like the dimensions seem to indicate. The chicks get trapped in the corners and can either overheat, get too cold, or just get squashed. If they do not die immediately in the corners, it would be possible for them to move around enough before keeling over, that you might not put it together that it was the corners. You should have a round or at least oblong brooder. I always used a giant rubbermaid tub for chicks and it worked well.

The other one is that the chicks are not getting to the water. The chicks are able to live off of their yolk sac for several days after hatching and do not need to eat or drink. (That is why they are able to be mailed to you upon hatching.) When you put them in the brooder, you need to take each chick from the carton and dip it's beak into the water and then place it in the brooder. This stimulates it to begin drinking.

From the time frame you gave it could be either of these or, of course, it could be something entirely different! Good luck and after you shoot them, make sure you clean the breasts and make some biscuits and cream gravy. ;)

[Mike Cutler]

Michael

I'm in the process of switching over to Dumor's Game bird feed from Tractor Supply. I tried some Poulan feed but neither set of birds would touch it.
The temps here were actually pretty low the first week. We had temps in the high 50's, low 60's at nite. Really cool for this time of the year in Ct.
I'll pay more attention to the feed from now on, and look at the content.

Robert

I like the brooder suggestion. A few weeks before getting my chicks. Tractor Supply was selling baby chicks, ducks and pheasants. They were all in 40 gallon Rubbermaid stock tanks. I should have followed their example.:(
I dipped their beaks in the water, but I don't really like the waterer I got. It tends to leak out. I keep two waterers, 16oz each in the brooder, and they are changed twice daily.

Another friend suggested that next time I divide them into groups of 25.
I don't anticipate using all of them this fall for training, but you never know., and would like to try and winter them over if possible. Next spring I'll try again I think.

Thanks for the tips guys. They give me a starting point to re-think my setup.