Preparing the Quail and Rabbit Hutches for Winter
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 พ.ย. 2022
- The frigid temperatures of winter are always a concern when it comes to raising animals. Luckily, the quail and rabbits both are pretty easy to care for and tolerate the cold weather very well.
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We move ours to cages hung over raised beds inside our garden high tunnel (big unheated greenhouse) - stays 20 to 30 degrees warmer during sunny days. 5 to 10 degrees warmer on cloudy days. Doesnt buy you much at night, though, but it keeps 'em out of the crazy winds and they do just fine.
No poop cleanup. Just let it all drop into the beds.
Watch the Hay if you do this. You can introduce a crap ton of weed seed into your beds.
Sounds like you have a pretty nice set up. I am well familiar with weed seeds from both hay and straw myself. :)
I love those Fortex bowls from Tractor Supply. They make a 1 quart bowl that Tractor Supply won't stock or order. I contacted Fortex directly and they sold and shipped a case of them to me directly at a very reasonable price. I can't praise them enough for taking the time to do that. They only sell them in cases of 24.
Nice. I may have to check into those as well. Can't have too many of them.
I got the same heated waterer your wife got you. I put some red marks on the side to act as a water lever indicator. The birds love it and I love it especially when it gets cold or rains. The 2 gallon capacity is good for me for 2 days if necessary. Also easy to refill. DEFINITELY recommend it. Thanks for all you do for us.
Glad to hear that they are working well for you too. They sure to make my life easier.
Awesome as always, thanks for the reminds! Works similarly for chickens, so long as they are out of the wind and are dry, your fine
Thanks for the kind comments. Yup, there are lots of similarities between quail and chickens.
Great tips! Thanks!!
Thanks for watching. I am glad you found it helpful.
Thank you, Mr. Chris. Informative & fun video. Very good council about no electrical cords in a rabbit hutch. Do have a question: do you still insure the 14-16 hours of light every day for the quail if you're not planning on incubating eggs during the winter?
Thanks for the kind comments. It really depends on whether you want eggs to eat or not. If you don't care to get eggs for eating, no reason to keep a light on them. I tend to keep a light on just so I have eggs for eating in the winter.
@@Slightlyrednecked Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it. God bless you & your family. Stay warm.
Hey there! I was curious…do you think our baby bunnies will be ok being about 20 degrees through the night? They are all nestled in the nesting box covered with fur.
I made your glad water container and for 3 days they never put their heads in it. They are used to port feeders for feed. I could not get them to drink. Is it because they couldn't see the water and know it was water because it was clear?
Instead we made cage heaters and mounted them on the front and enclosed them in plexiglass on the wire. The heaters are set to 42 and turn back on at 35. It is keeping their jugs with horizontal nipples flowing fine. We have been in the teens several nights. I use your ammo box/inkbird build to control the temp. Actually installed two one hundred watt ceramic heaters and a fan w/filter inside the ammo box and hung it on the cage.
That is strange. I have never had a problem with mine finding the water. If you have to try again, you might leave the lid off for a day or two in order to get them used to where it is. Sounds like you have a pretty good solution for it though.
Thank you Chis. It was rather costly compared to your's. But cheaper per cage than buying a heated waterer that is too large for my cages anyway.
Stupid question, can you still incubate eggs that might have been frozen?
You can try....but if they did freeze it is very unlikely that they would hatch.
Are your cages facing the sun?
My rabbit cages aren't. My quail hutches are but they are in the shade during the summer. They get a little sun during winter when the leaves are off of the trees.
I got a 250 watt submersible heater on a thermostat controller with a very small circulation pump. The heater is in a 5 gallon bucket on the roof and the quail hutch is in a semi protected area.
Hope it works out well. ..
Sounds like a good plan. I hope it works out well too.
More on aging the meat. And you're lucky you can leave your cage door open that long my birds wanna fly out
Being around them often helps. I've noticed that the ones I hatched are calmer, while those I bought at 2 weeks were very skittish. Thankfully they've calmed down now. After I put the food in. Sometimes I pat or pet some of them so they get used to it
As for aging the meat, I just like to let them rest in the refrigerator until rigormortis leaves. Usually about 2 to 4 days. If you don't wait, the meat has a tendency to be tough.
Thank you for the info I'm going to have to do that