Hey Guys! If you want to learn more about the Hatching Time Brooders that I like so much, check out these videos 1. th-cam.com/video/1sAwCl1eM68/w-d-xo.html 2. th-cam.com/video/uoVk9pTk0Ys/w-d-xo.html And if you are trying to decide between keeping your quail in a garage hutch or and backyard hutch, here is a video showing my building of my backyard hutch! th-cam.com/video/ZZwXdC49ZR8/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/dkOVpVqd1zg/w-d-xo.html I hope those things are helpful! Thanks for watching the video!
awesome work man, Thanks for sharing, im definitely interested in what your doing and subscribed. central new york here. i want to do enough eggs to double my consumption then meat birds.
Thank you for this video! We bought the quail cage 4 tier and we also have jumbo coturnix quail, there poop does not fall through, just like you said! Plus in my opinion they only fit about 3 quail comfortably. It's super helpful that you showed the quail in the chicken cage, really helpful to see and know that the chicken cage will work better. We ordered it after watching your video. Thank you again!
We have had the chicken cage for a week now - and not only can our quail squeeze through the door grates and fly out, but also we noticed it's hard for them to reach the food because the white trays are so much deeper than the ones for the quail cage. They do have more room which is great and their poop falls through much better but the feeding thing is an issue. We will have to cover part of the door gaps so they can't fly out. Also the flooring is much bigger gaps than the quail cage and their feet are falling through. Would you mind please telling me the size of the openings of the flooring that your birds walk on (the chicken cage) and also what are the measurements please of your door openings where they stick their head through to eat? Our floor squares are 11/16" x 7/8". And our smallest door opening is 1 11/16" x 4 3/4"
@@Christine-gc1bs Sorry you are having problems. Please note that they sell two sizes of chicken cages, the 15" and the 22". The 15" are basically the same as the partridge cages. So the smaller of the chicken cages, the 15" is what I use. I fill the feed tray up to the top and then they can reach it easily. I have not had any of my quail escape at all. I have not put them into the chicken cage with egg roll out until they are about 7 weeks old, so maybe that is why. In the chicken grow out pens it has the same yellow doors as the adult chicken pen doors, and I have put some in those that were about 6 weeks old and have not had any escape. I did have to put a 2 x 4 under the water drinker just to make sure the smaller ones could reach it. I feel like the spaces for their feet are a bit bigger than I would like to see, but it works. I don't see them ever having trouble with it or slipping through.
Thanks for sharing your opinions. I settled ordered for 1 layer for breeders, 3 layers for growout, and 1 layer for the brooder. Im thinking this should be sufficient to process 20 birds every few weeks If I incubate around 30 eggs each cycle. I really love how this is modular and you can stack all the stages of growth in one rack.
You are welcome. It is now easier to find the right ones on their website if you look for partridge cages. I should have called them that rather than "smaller chicken cages" in the video. Hatching time use to call them both things because they also work for the smaller bantam chickens. But now they are listed as partridge cages.
Hi I noticed your video on Hatching Time cage system and how much you like it My question is the capacity a 3 cage breeder layer is 4.3 Sq Ft and they say it can hold 9 to 15 birds. I was told that 1 Sq Ft is required per bird?
Very helpful... I'll be adding some small chicken pens to my set-up.. the poop issue has definitely been inconvenient! I really like the brooder/grow-out arrangement you're using.
I will be doing another update once it warms up, but I will tell you now here. For the quail my cutting out of the inner wall sections (not sure if I mention that in this video or a different one) was not such a great idea for quail. It works great in the chicken grow out pens and the larger chicken cages I now have. But I cut out the walls in the smaller adult chicken cages I now use for my quail, and that was a mistake. The quail males fight too much so I ended up separating them anyway. So in hind sight I would still use the small chicken cages for the quail with the interior divider walls like they come from the factory. Hope that makes sense.
Thank you for your review. I’d like to buy those because they are practical to wash but for my quails : ni room to run, Fly, rest their feet, lake their nest, have a piece of soil, grass …. Si I’ would like to find a way to give them accès ti a piece of land at least few hours a day.
If you are looking for a way to allow your quail to be out on land for part of the day, you might consider building your own cage with an attached run. Some of these videos might give you some ideas th-cam.com/users/results?search_query=quail+run. I hope that is helpful.
Thank you for this great video. After watching it I decided to go with the partridge cages for my jumbo coturnix quail. Loving them so far. The bottom layers of cages though keep getting poop in the feed troughs. I'm guessing it's coming from the cages above as the top layer never gets poop in it. Have you ever had this issue? Not sure if i'm placing the poop trays incorrectly of if it is just something that happens.
Welcome. Yes that happens. I forgot about that issue. I always put butcher paper down on the trays for the poop to land on. Then all I had to do was roll them up and throw away. I would also not push the trays back as far. 1/4 inch or so less. That seemed to keep the poop out of lower trays mostly. It made the back a bit more messy. But at least it wasn't in feed trays. And I would just roll cages forward once a week and sweep what missed the back of trays and hit ground. They need slightly wider trays.
thinking about raising quail and I started building a coop similar to yours but 2 feet by 6 feet. Now looking at brooder set ups and different ways to grow them out before they go into the larger cage. Im thinking a 2 level brooder (quail size), 1 level grow out (quail sized) and 2 level of adult (partridge sized) would work great for a year round set up for jumbo sized quail. At what point is it ok to move the jumbos from the Grow out cage to the Partridge laying cage without them being able to escape?? Thanks for this detailed and informative video.
Is there any worry about how much room they have. I'd like to buy quail to lay eggs. Just concerned that they would get stressed is such a small space.
A lot of people raise them in cages like this, and health wise they do fine. Here is a video I did showing the outside cage I built and now use. This allows them to have more room and even a sandbox. th-cam.com/video/ZZwXdC49ZR8/w-d-xo.html
How many jumbo quail can live in each small chicken cage? I see hatchingtime has a jumbo quail floor. Would that be sufficient for keeping 7 jumbo quail in a quail cage? Did you choose small chicken cages for anything other than the size of floor grid?
Thank you. If you go to hatching time's website they have the dimensions of everything there. You should be able to get pretty close estimate from there. I hope that helps.
getting ready to order some of these, quick question though. can you swap the flooring from bantam chicken cages into the quail cages? Thanks for you time and effort with this and the rest of your videos.
I don't believe they are interchangeable. You can call the company to be sure, but having assembled as many of these as I now have, I don't think they would be.
I will be keeping mine in the garage as well - what would you suggest for colder months to keep water from freezing in the lines and trough? Just thinking ahead…
Good thinking! I will tell you what I did as well as what I would do differently now. What I did was to just drain the water lines and then water them using normal bird waterers like you get at the feed store. With the floors being slanted for egg roll out it still worked as long as I kept the hole where the water comes out on the downhill side. It worked fine, you just have to check on and possibly change the water twice a day. What I would do now if I were to use cages like that again, I would use a downsized version of my winter automatic watering system shown in this video: th-cam.com/video/JepDgL3aPfs/w-d-xo.html. I would get the 150 watt bird bath deicer, pump and 50 gallon water barrel I show in that video. Since the cages stand so high (depending on how many you have) you won’t be able to elevate the 50 gallon barrel high enough for gravity to flow. So in that case you would just not use the temperature switch and allow the pump to circulate the warm water 24/7. Those little pumps can pump the water up 9 feet, so they will work fine. For a system like this to work you will need to rig up return lines for the water being circulated to be returned to the water barrel. This shouldn’t be too difficult. You would just need to drill holes into the ends of the white plastic square water bars that the nipples screw into, and then somehow attach a water hose there. I have never dissected those water bars but my understanding is that they are just hollow square tubes. Assuming that is correct you should be able to convert them somehow to be able to attach a return line. Hopefully what I am saying makes sense and I am not confusing you, That is what I would figure out and do if I had them again so that I did not have to water them twice a day. Or worst case scenario you can just water them twice a day. But in a garage with a bird deicer in the water and the water continually circulating traveling those short distances the water shouldn’t freeze at all. It would take a bit of work setting up and some creativity, but it could work. If you have watched some of my recent videos I still have the hatching time brooder box/grow out pens. I have used them the last couple of months in my now attached/insulated garage, and I have just used the normal auto watering system that came with the cages and nothing has froze at all. (My old garage was detached and not insulated.) So if your garage is attached and insulated you might not need to change anything. Hope that all made sense and helped!
Thanks for the information. I am purchasing the brooder and would like to order the doors you mention so I can use it as the grow out as well. But I don't know which size door to order. Can you provide a part number or size? Thanx again. this was very informative
this is for a heated shed or garage only no way to keep water from freezing and the cages have too small of holes on bottom and poop won’t drop to tray very annoying and messy
As far as the hole size that is true if you are breeding jumbos which is why in the video for them I suggest the partridge cages for adult jumbo quail. I kept mine through the winter in an unheated detached garage. Just before the water lines freeze up you have to drain them and start watering them with traditional waterers. That is what I did and it worked fine. If you want to see a heated automatic watering system that I built for my outside quail hutches watch this video here th-cam.com/video/DGS021FgSyM/w-d-xo.html. A similar system could easily be designed and fitted to the hatching time cages. Or if you prefer building an outside hutch here is the build video for the one I built. th-cam.com/video/ZZwXdC49ZR8/w-d-xo.html. I hope that is helpful.
Thanks for the video. I just got the 3 tier quail pens. Really like them want to get the brooder pens. Do you freeze dry the eggs whole? Just also got a freeze dryer couple months ago and still experimenting with it.
Good job! You are getting prepared! What we do is crack all the eggs into a big bowl and beat them like we were going to scramble them, then we freeze dry that. They freeze dry great and you end up with egg powder. To re-constitute as long as you put the correct amount of water it comes back just like it did before you freeze dried them and you can scramble them or whatever. That is how we do it.
I have an opportunity to purchase some used chicken brooder cages. I am wondering if I can use them to brood and grow out quail to 8 weeks in them. They have two-piece doors that look like they come down and close in the front. But then I'm not sure I could change out the doors for the ventilated ones at grow-out stage, they might still be too small and fit through at that age. You mentioned that you couldn't see through the chicken brooder doors but has that been changed on the website, they look clear like the smaller ones. Do you think the entire cage would be too big? These would be jumbo quail.
They would work I suppose as long as you can get them enough ventilation. I have never tested whether the chicken grow out pens are interchangeable with the chicken brooder box. I just jumped on hatching times website and they look like they would be, but I couldn't say for sure. And yes the doors are clear, for some reason they just were harder to see through than the quail ones.
The oldest age I have ever had in the grow out pens is about 7 weeks. By the time they get that big you might need to split them (depending how many were in your hatch) into 2 separate grow out pens. By the time they get that big they will start to get pretty crowded. 20 birds will be the top as they start to get to full size.
@@theemergencyprepguy thank you for your fast response. The plastic mesh seems very good and hygenic. I tried metal mesh but didn't like it how the feed reacted to it, also harder to clean due to rusting in a year. Will look into this foor brooder and maybe grow layers :)
@@kanarie93 sounds good. Also if you decide you want to build outside cages here is my video on how I built mine. th-cam.com/video/ZZwXdC49ZR8/w-d-xo.html
The smaller chicken cages work (the ones for bantam chickens or partridges) for the jumbo meat maker quail better than the quail cages. The catch is they need to be 5 or 6 weeks old though to be big enough to reach the water (on its lower setting) and not escape. When you first put them in you will have to fill the feed trays completely full to make sure the quail can reach the food. Even once they get full grown I still fill the feed trays at least half to 3/4 full.
I got the whole setup. What food should I buy for the baby chich quails and what for the adult quails? I'm looking for a Non-GMO Organic feed. I'm getting the jumbo quails for eggs and meat. Also, if I have 80 adult jumbo quails, how much time would a 50 pound bag last? Thank you.
Remember I am an emergency preparedness channel so that is the way I look at things. With all the crazy supply chain breakdowns etc. you want to have as much feed on hand as you can so if the grocery stores go empty you can continue to raise eggs and meat. Your limitation is they say pre-mixed feed is good for about six months. You could probably stretch it a year if you had to. If they stayed little a 50 lb bag will last several months. Once they start laying eggs and are full size they go through the feed faster. I keep 12 hens and 2 roosters ongoing as breeders and my best guess for them would be a 50lb bag lasts 2 months. It might last longer. It is hard for me to know because I am also feeding about 20 chuckar partridges, but that is what I believe the quail are eating. I buy the highest protein turkey or wild bird feed I can find for when they are growing. It needs to be as close to 30% protein as possible. Then your birds will grow very fast. Once they are about 12 weeks old I switch them to normal 16% protein chicken layer feed with the extra calcium. Hope that helps.
@@theemergencyprepguy Yes that helped me a lot, thanks. I am preparing for a world economic collapse and I just found out about quails now. I live in a urban area and chickens are louder to have and they require more space; plus you can't have a roster. Is there a different feed for chicks and a different feed for adults when it comes to size? With other words, do I have to grind the feed for the chicks?
@@Figs4Life Chicks eat the same feed as adults, they just need the higher protein turkey/wild bird stuff. One thing you should look into is how to make your own feed. Most of the videos you will find on the topic are talking about chicken feed which is fine. Just mix in more of the protein for the younger birds. I have watched a few of the videos but haven't yet started doing it. From what I have learned the feed is cheaper that way and you can be sure and buy non GMO grains. If you buy the grains whole they will last a lot longer and then you just need a way to grind it if you want to keep them on cracked feed. I am not sure if quail can handle whole grains. That is also something to research. If you are trying to be self sufficient you might look into rabbits. You can truly supply all your needed meat with rabbits (they reproduce like rabbits lol). Rabbit tastes just like skinned chicken. Cooking it you want to treat it like skinned chicken or else it will be dry. With one buck and two does you can literally feed your family and never need to buy chicken again. The other nice thing about rabbits is their poop is perfect fertilizer for your garden. It is not hot like bird poop and so you don't have to let it age in a compost pile like quail or chicken poop. You can throw it right on the garden daily if you wanted. Here is my video on the rabbit hutch I just built. I just moved to a new (older) home where I have a big back yard so I now have a lot of room outside for my animals. Here is the rabbit hutch video th-cam.com/video/tBMDBPXjNYM/w-d-xo.html. The other nice thing about rabbits is you could feed them off of garden/yard scraps if you had to.
@@Figs4Life Before moving to east Idaho I had rabbits for about 6 years. I have never had one get sick. I know it can happen. But it really isn't very common (especially if your rabbits are not on the ground or going to shows where they are around a lot of other rabbits). Rabbits are very hardy. The main thing with rabbits is they need to be out of the wind if it gets cold. They can handle very cold weather really well, they have very warm fur, the cold wind is the only problem. They also need shade. Hot summers is actually tougher on them than cold winters. So where ever you put their cages, be sure that the cage itself is in the shade.
I put some in the freezer. I keep about 12 females and 2 males on a regular basis. I sold these garage cages and now keep them in this hutch that I built in my yard th-cam.com/video/ZZwXdC49ZR8/w-d-xo.html. They are a lot quieter than chickens.
Have you had any issues with your quail's feet? I went with the smaller chicken cage for my jumbo quail and within 3 weeks their toes all swelled up. Wondering if the floor openings are just to big.
I actually just went out to inspect and it is poop build up on the toes. Their feet are falling through way more then I thought and the toes are hitting the tray. I clean the tray every 3 days. Guess I need to up that!
@@katiegilbert6534 Are they the Jumbo sized quail, or standard size? With my jumbos I haven't really had any problem with their feet falling through. One thing you might try on the poop trays is I purchased a roll of butcher paper from Costco and I cut a piece a bit too large for the tray and put it in the poop tray. It makes cleaning a snap as long as you aren't wanting to keep the poop. You can just roll it up and throw it in a garbage bag. A friend I know used the type of plastic that come on rolls to wrap around furniture when you are moving. I haven't seen it but he told me he lays that down in the trays and likes it better than the butcher paper. I haven't tried that yet.
So I’m looking to raise Gambel Quail. What layer cage would you recommend? I’m stuck between the 3 or 4 layer quail layer cage or the Partridge layer cage…? I raise chickens n ducks also.
Gamble quail as I understand range from around 5 to 6.5 ounces when fully grown. My Coturnix jumbo meat maker quail grow up to 14 ounces. Mine did not start having a problem with the cages until they were fully grown, so I think your Gamble quail should do great in Hatching Time's normal quail cages. Just don't use their adult cages for your adolescent birds. Get a grow out pen for those. I now keep my quail in a backyard cage I built. You can find those videos on my channel if you are interested. Hope that is helpful.
@@melissaengelhard3662 Here is a link to the company's website. The numbers of quail they list are for standard sized quail like the bobwhite. Hope that helps. hatchingtime.com/collections/breeding-cage-systems/products/quail-1-layer-cage-breeding-pen
When you say jumbo meat makers quails, do you mean a different breed or just a fully grown quail? I want to have 60 female quails (and 2-3 males) for eggs and meat. What type of setup do I need to have form chicks to adults? Thank you.
Jumbo meat makers are a breed of Coturnix quail that have bread to be larger than normal quail and some of them are bread to produce larger eggs. The hatching time brooder boxes I show in the video each hold a maximum of about 30 quail until they are feathered out, weaned off heat, and ready to go into a grow out pen (about 2.5 to 4 weeks depending on temperatures where you will be keeping them. So hopefully that will help you estimate how many of those you will need. I start my 30 off in my grow out pen (which is my brooder box with the yellow bar doors instead of the solid clear) but then I quickly split them between two grow out pens just to give them more room. as they grow out. By this time (at least with the Coturnix) it is easy to tell the males from the females so I split them by gender. About the time the females start laying eggs the roosters start crowing and searching for females to breed. About this time I choose however many of the the largest of the males to put in with the females at whatever male to female ratio I want. I like to have at least 5 females for each male. The rest of the males I keep together in the grow out pen until they are ready to process and put in the freezer. Once the females start laying they are usually big enough to fit into the adult quail cages with the egg roll outs. I would only get as many adult quail cages as you need to keep your breeders. If you want to keep any quail outdoors here is a video of how I built my outside quail cage th-cam.com/video/dkOVpVqd1zg/w-d-xo.html
@@Jesus_Said_I_AM_Almighty_God Also remember if you purchase the larger Coturnix quail (Jumbos) be sure and use the partridge cages with the egg roll out (same as their smaller bantam chicken cages) rather than their adult quail cages, as the holes are not big enough for Jumbo quail poop to go through, and it will be a mess and hurt the quail's feet.
@@theemergencyprepguy I have 5 rows of quail breeding cages and love them. I am trying to figure out what combination I need for my next order. Do the brood and breeding cages stack together or are they different sizes? I i am hatching out 40-60 quail per batch, I am thinking adding 2 rows breeder cages and 3 rows brood cages that can easily be made into grow cages. Or should I do 2 brood 1 grow and 2 breed? your thoughts?
@@alsupak2576 Thanks for the question. They have brooder cages, grow out cages and egg roll out (or adult) cages. Yes all of them are the same size and will stack in the same stack. The quail grow out cages and brooder cages are identical, the only difference is the doors and the brooders have a heater. Quail grow so fast that by the time they are 3 weeks old you can wean them off the heat and have them in grow out pens. So make sure you buy grow out pen doors for your brooder cages so you can turn them into grow out pens when they are ready and not have to move them.
@@alsupak2576 Also once the birds get about 6 to 8 weeks old they start laying eggs. At that point it is really handy to have them in a cage with a egg roll out (until process time). We found when they lay eggs in a grow out pen the eggs get pooped on and often broken depending on how many birds in the pen.
Good info thanks. That being said, how many 6 week old quail do you think is a comfortable fit for 1 row of 9.5” grow pens? How many hatchling to 3 week old do you think would work for 1 row?
It is pretty pricy. Here is an article with some videos showing a quail hutch I built myself. emergencyprepguy.com/building-a-quail-hutch-slightly-rednecked-style/
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Hey Guys! If you want to learn more about the Hatching Time Brooders that I like so much, check out these videos 1. th-cam.com/video/1sAwCl1eM68/w-d-xo.html 2. th-cam.com/video/uoVk9pTk0Ys/w-d-xo.html
And if you are trying to decide between keeping your quail in a garage hutch or and backyard hutch, here is a video showing my building of my backyard hutch! th-cam.com/video/ZZwXdC49ZR8/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/dkOVpVqd1zg/w-d-xo.html I hope those things are helpful! Thanks for watching the video!
awesome work man, Thanks for sharing, im definitely interested in what your doing and subscribed. central new york here. i want to do enough eggs to double my consumption then meat birds.
So helpful! We do need more videos like this. Thank you 🙏
Thank you for this video! We bought the quail cage 4 tier and we also have jumbo coturnix quail, there poop does not fall through, just like you said! Plus in my opinion they only fit about 3 quail comfortably. It's super helpful that you showed the quail in the chicken cage, really helpful to see and know that the chicken cage will work better. We ordered it after watching your video. Thank you again!
Cool! Glad it was helpful. Thank you for saying so.
We have had the chicken cage for a week now - and not only can our quail squeeze through the door grates and fly out, but also we noticed it's hard for them to reach the food because the white trays are so much deeper than the ones for the quail cage. They do have more room which is great and their poop falls through much better but the feeding thing is an issue. We will have to cover part of the door gaps so they can't fly out. Also the flooring is much bigger gaps than the quail cage and their feet are falling through. Would you mind please telling me the size of the openings of the flooring that your birds walk on (the chicken cage) and also what are the measurements please of your door openings where they stick their head through to eat? Our floor squares are 11/16" x 7/8". And our smallest door opening is 1 11/16" x 4 3/4"
@@Christine-gc1bs Sorry you are having problems. Please note that they sell two sizes of chicken cages, the 15" and the 22". The 15" are basically the same as the partridge cages. So the smaller of the chicken cages, the 15" is what I use. I fill the feed tray up to the top and then they can reach it easily. I have not had any of my quail escape at all. I have not put them into the chicken cage with egg roll out until they are about 7 weeks old, so maybe that is why. In the chicken grow out pens it has the same yellow doors as the adult chicken pen doors, and I have put some in those that were about 6 weeks old and have not had any escape. I did have to put a 2 x 4 under the water drinker just to make sure the smaller ones could reach it. I feel like the spaces for their feet are a bit bigger than I would like to see, but it works. I don't see them ever having trouble with it or slipping through.
Thanks for sharing your opinions. I settled ordered for 1 layer for breeders, 3 layers for growout, and 1 layer for the brooder. Im thinking this should be sufficient to process 20 birds every few weeks If I incubate around 30 eggs each cycle. I really love how this is modular and you can stack all the stages of growth in one rack.
Me too. Glad the video was helpful 😌
This video was so helpful. Thank you! I want to raise jumbo quail and almost bought the smaller quail cages. I will go for the chicken cages instead.
You are welcome. It is now easier to find the right ones on their website if you look for partridge cages. I should have called them that rather than "smaller chicken cages" in the video. Hatching time use to call them both things because they also work for the smaller bantam chickens. But now they are listed as partridge cages.
@@theemergencyprepguy OK. I will check out the website for exactly that. Thank you so much. Take care in this crazy world. Wish you the best.
Thanks
Hi I noticed your video on Hatching Time cage system and how much you like it My question is the capacity a 3 cage breeder layer is 4.3 Sq Ft and they say it can hold 9 to 15 birds. I was told that 1 Sq Ft is required per bird?
Thank you a good video with lots of info
Very helpful... I'll be adding some small chicken pens to my set-up.. the poop issue has definitely been inconvenient! I really like the brooder/grow-out arrangement you're using.
I will be doing another update once it warms up, but I will tell you now here. For the quail my cutting out of the inner wall sections (not sure if I mention that in this video or a different one) was not such a great idea for quail. It works great in the chicken grow out pens and the larger chicken cages I now have. But I cut out the walls in the smaller adult chicken cages I now use for my quail, and that was a mistake. The quail males fight too much so I ended up separating them anyway. So in hind sight I would still use the small chicken cages for the quail with the interior divider walls like they come from the factory. Hope that makes sense.
Thank you for your review. I’d like to buy those because they are practical to wash but for my quails : ni room to run, Fly, rest their feet, lake their nest, have a piece of soil, grass …. Si I’ would like to find a way to give them accès ti a piece of land at least few hours a day.
If you are looking for a way to allow your quail to be out on land for part of the day, you might consider building your own cage with an attached run. Some of these videos might give you some ideas th-cam.com/users/results?search_query=quail+run. I hope that is helpful.
This was super helpful!! Thank you
Thank you for this great video. After watching it I decided to go with the partridge cages for my jumbo coturnix quail. Loving them so far. The bottom layers of cages though keep getting poop in the feed troughs. I'm guessing it's coming from the cages above as the top layer never gets poop in it. Have you ever had this issue? Not sure if i'm placing the poop trays incorrectly of if it is just something that happens.
Welcome. Yes that happens. I forgot about that issue. I always put butcher paper down on the trays for the poop to land on. Then all I had to do was roll them up and throw away. I would also not push the trays back as far. 1/4 inch or so less. That seemed to keep the poop out of lower trays mostly. It made the back a bit more messy. But at least it wasn't in feed trays. And I would just roll cages forward once a week and sweep what missed the back of trays and hit ground. They need slightly wider trays.
thinking about raising quail and I started building a coop similar to yours but 2 feet by 6 feet. Now looking at brooder set ups and different ways to grow them out before they go into the larger cage. Im thinking a 2 level brooder (quail size), 1 level grow out (quail sized) and 2 level of adult (partridge sized) would work great for a year round set up for jumbo sized quail. At what point is it ok to move the jumbos from the Grow out cage to the Partridge laying cage without them being able to escape?? Thanks for this detailed and informative video.
Thanks for the video.
No problem. Glad it was helpful.
Is there any worry about how much room they have.
I'd like to buy quail to lay eggs.
Just concerned that they would get stressed is such a small space.
A lot of people raise them in cages like this, and health wise they do fine. Here is a video I did showing the outside cage I built and now use. This allows them to have more room and even a sandbox. th-cam.com/video/ZZwXdC49ZR8/w-d-xo.html
How many jumbo quail can live in each small chicken cage?
I see hatchingtime has a jumbo quail floor. Would that be sufficient for keeping 7 jumbo quail in a quail cage? Did you choose small chicken cages for anything other than the size of floor grid?
Great review!
Glad you liked it!
Thanks
You are welcome! Thanks for the kind words.
Awesome video's. Lots of info . I have a question about the brooders what's the space between the floor and heater? Thank you
Thank you. If you go to hatching time's website they have the dimensions of everything there. You should be able to get pretty close estimate from there. I hope that helps.
getting ready to order some of these, quick question though. can you swap the flooring from bantam chicken cages into the quail cages? Thanks for you time and effort with this and the rest of your videos.
I don't believe they are interchangeable. You can call the company to be sure, but having assembled as many of these as I now have, I don't think they would be.
I will be keeping mine in the garage as well - what would you suggest for colder months to keep water from freezing in the lines and trough? Just thinking ahead…
Good thinking! I will tell you what I did as well as what I would do differently now. What I did was to just drain the water lines and then water them using normal bird waterers like you get at the feed store. With the floors being slanted for egg roll out it still worked as long as I kept the hole where the water comes out on the downhill side. It worked fine, you just have to check on and possibly change the water twice a day.
What I would do now if I were to use cages like that again, I would use a downsized version of my winter automatic watering system shown in this video: th-cam.com/video/JepDgL3aPfs/w-d-xo.html.
I would get the 150 watt bird bath deicer, pump and 50 gallon water barrel I show in that video. Since the cages stand so high (depending on how many you have) you won’t be able to elevate the 50 gallon barrel high enough for gravity to flow. So in that case you would just not use the temperature switch and allow the pump to circulate the warm water 24/7. Those little pumps can pump the water up 9 feet, so they will work fine.
For a system like this to work you will need to rig up return lines for the water being circulated to be returned to the water barrel. This shouldn’t be too difficult. You would just need to drill holes into the ends of the white plastic square water bars that the nipples screw into, and then somehow attach a water hose there. I have never dissected those water bars but my understanding is that they are just hollow square tubes. Assuming that is correct you should be able to convert them somehow to be able to attach a return line. Hopefully what I am saying makes sense and I am not confusing you,
That is what I would figure out and do if I had them again so that I did not have to water them twice a day. Or worst case scenario you can just water them twice a day.
But in a garage with a bird deicer in the water and the water continually circulating traveling those short distances the water shouldn’t freeze at all. It would take a bit of work setting up and some creativity, but it could work.
If you have watched some of my recent videos I still have the hatching time brooder box/grow out pens. I have used them the last couple of months in my now attached/insulated garage, and I have just used the normal auto watering system that came with the cages and nothing has froze at all. (My old garage was detached and not insulated.) So if your garage is attached and insulated you might not need to change anything.
Hope that all made sense and helped!
@@theemergencyprepguy Thank you! These are some great ideas!
@@ginamurrable you are very welcome!
You mean is better for the adult quails to put them in grow out pens that are meant for the chickens?
If you have Jumbo sized quail their poop is too big for the holes in the bottom of the quail cages. The cages are meant for normal sized quail.
Do your meat thermometers stick straight out inside the brooders? Do they get in the way of the chicks?
Thanks for the information. I am purchasing the brooder and would like to order the doors you mention so I can use it as the grow out as well. But I don't know which size door to order. Can you provide a part number or size? Thanx again. this was very informative
They are the doors from the regular quail grow out pens. There is just one size.
this is for a heated shed or garage only no way to keep water from freezing and the cages have too small of holes on bottom and poop won’t drop to tray very annoying and messy
As far as the hole size that is true if you are breeding jumbos which is why in the video for them I suggest the partridge cages for adult jumbo quail. I kept mine through the winter in an unheated detached garage. Just before the water lines freeze up you have to drain them and start watering them with traditional waterers. That is what I did and it worked fine. If you want to see a heated automatic watering system that I built for my outside quail hutches watch this video here th-cam.com/video/DGS021FgSyM/w-d-xo.html. A similar system could easily be designed and fitted to the hatching time cages. Or if you prefer building an outside hutch here is the build video for the one I built. th-cam.com/video/ZZwXdC49ZR8/w-d-xo.html. I hope that is helpful.
Thanks for the video. I just got the 3 tier quail pens. Really like them want to get the brooder pens. Do you freeze dry the eggs whole? Just also got a freeze dryer couple months ago and still experimenting with it.
Good job! You are getting prepared!
What we do is crack all the eggs into a big bowl and beat them like we were going to scramble them, then we freeze dry that. They freeze dry great and you end up with egg powder. To re-constitute as long as you put the correct amount of water it comes back just like it did before you freeze dried them and you can scramble them or whatever. That is how we do it.
The price is 200 dollars for 10 hatching eggs at merer hatchery---- holy cow ???
I have an opportunity to purchase some used chicken brooder cages. I am wondering if I can use them to brood and grow out quail to 8 weeks in them. They have two-piece doors that look like they come down and close in the front. But then I'm not sure I could change out the doors for the ventilated ones at grow-out stage, they might still be too small and fit through at that age. You mentioned that you couldn't see through the chicken brooder doors but has that been changed on the website, they look clear like the smaller ones. Do you think the entire cage would be too big? These would be jumbo quail.
They would work I suppose as long as you can get them enough ventilation. I have never tested whether the chicken grow out pens are interchangeable with the chicken brooder box. I just jumped on hatching times website and they look like they would be, but I couldn't say for sure. And yes the doors are clear, for some reason they just were harder to see through than the quail ones.
Can you use 9.5 growout pens for 4-8week old jumbo
The oldest age I have ever had in the grow out pens is about 7 weeks. By the time they get that big you might need to split them (depending how many were in your hatch) into 2 separate grow out pens. By the time they get that big they will start to get pretty crowded. 20 birds will be the top as they start to get to full size.
are your adult quail the cages meant for partridge? The 9.5" height cages instead of 15" chicken cages?
Yes. I should have said partridge cages instead of bantam chicken cages or smaller chicken cages because it confused people. But yes you are correct.
@@theemergencyprepguy thank you for your fast response. The plastic mesh seems very good and hygenic. I tried metal mesh but didn't like it how the feed reacted to it, also harder to clean due to rusting in a year.
Will look into this foor brooder and maybe grow layers :)
@@kanarie93 sounds good. Also if you decide you want to build outside cages here is my video on how I built mine. th-cam.com/video/ZZwXdC49ZR8/w-d-xo.html
will the chicken cages work for the quail or could they escape
The smaller chicken cages work (the ones for bantam chickens or partridges) for the jumbo meat maker quail better than the quail cages. The catch is they need to be 5 or 6 weeks old though to be big enough to reach the water (on its lower setting) and not escape. When you first put them in you will have to fill the feed trays completely full to make sure the quail can reach the food. Even once they get full grown I still fill the feed trays at least half to 3/4 full.
I got the whole setup. What food should I buy for the baby chich quails and what for the adult quails?
I'm looking for a Non-GMO Organic feed.
I'm getting the jumbo quails for eggs and meat.
Also, if I have 80 adult jumbo quails, how much time would a 50 pound bag last?
Thank you.
Remember I am an emergency preparedness channel so that is the way I look at things. With all the crazy supply chain breakdowns etc. you want to have as much feed on hand as you can so if the grocery stores go empty you can continue to raise eggs and meat. Your limitation is they say pre-mixed feed is good for about six months. You could probably stretch it a year if you had to.
If they stayed little a 50 lb bag will last several months. Once they start laying eggs and are full size they go through the feed faster. I keep 12 hens and 2 roosters ongoing as breeders and my best guess for them would be a 50lb bag lasts 2 months. It might last longer. It is hard for me to know because I am also feeding about 20 chuckar partridges, but that is what I believe the quail are eating.
I buy the highest protein turkey or wild bird feed I can find for when they are growing. It needs to be as close to 30% protein as possible. Then your birds will grow very fast.
Once they are about 12 weeks old I switch them to normal 16% protein chicken layer feed with the extra calcium. Hope that helps.
@@theemergencyprepguy Yes that helped me a lot, thanks.
I am preparing for a world economic collapse and I just found out about quails now.
I live in a urban area and chickens are louder to have and they require more space; plus you can't have a roster.
Is there a different feed for chicks and a different feed for adults when it comes to size?
With other words, do I have to grind the feed for the chicks?
@@Figs4Life Chicks eat the same feed as adults, they just need the higher protein turkey/wild bird stuff. One thing you should look into is how to make your own feed. Most of the videos you will find on the topic are talking about chicken feed which is fine. Just mix in more of the protein for the younger birds. I have watched a few of the videos but haven't yet started doing it. From what I have learned the feed is cheaper that way and you can be sure and buy non GMO grains. If you buy the grains whole they will last a lot longer and then you just need a way to grind it if you want to keep them on cracked feed. I am not sure if quail can handle whole grains. That is also something to research.
If you are trying to be self sufficient you might look into rabbits. You can truly supply all your needed meat with rabbits (they reproduce like rabbits lol). Rabbit tastes just like skinned chicken. Cooking it you want to treat it like skinned chicken or else it will be dry. With one buck and two does you can literally feed your family and never need to buy chicken again. The other nice thing about rabbits is their poop is perfect fertilizer for your garden. It is not hot like bird poop and so you don't have to let it age in a compost pile like quail or chicken poop. You can throw it right on the garden daily if you wanted.
Here is my video on the rabbit hutch I just built. I just moved to a new (older) home where I have a big back yard so I now have a lot of room outside for my animals. Here is the rabbit hutch video th-cam.com/video/tBMDBPXjNYM/w-d-xo.html. The other nice thing about rabbits is you could feed them off of garden/yard scraps if you had to.
@@theemergencyprepguy Great information thank you.
Do rabbits get sick easily?
@@Figs4Life Before moving to east Idaho I had rabbits for about 6 years. I have never had one get sick. I know it can happen. But it really isn't very common (especially if your rabbits are not on the ground or going to shows where they are around a lot of other rabbits). Rabbits are very hardy.
The main thing with rabbits is they need to be out of the wind if it gets cold. They can handle very cold weather really well, they have very warm fur, the cold wind is the only problem. They also need shade. Hot summers is actually tougher on them than cold winters. So where ever you put their cages, be sure that the cage itself is in the shade.
How do you clean the inside? Does it come apart? Or you have to reach inside and wipe down?
It is super simple. I just remove the birds and roll it out onto the driveway and hose it down. Fast, easy and it cleans up like new.
@@theemergencyprepguy so are you saying you don’t have to take anything apart? It’s that easy? Hose it out?
Yes
How many quail chicks can you have in a 2 section chick brooder?
See the answer I gave to your other question.
Do they make a lot of noise?
How many male quails do you have?
I put some in the freezer. I keep about 12 females and 2 males on a regular basis. I sold these garage cages and now keep them in this hutch that I built in my yard th-cam.com/video/ZZwXdC49ZR8/w-d-xo.html. They are a lot quieter than chickens.
Have you had any issues with your quail's feet? I went with the smaller chicken cage for my jumbo quail and within 3 weeks their toes all swelled up. Wondering if the floor openings are just to big.
No, I had them in there all winter until a little over a month ago. I never had any problems. Sorry yours are.
I actually just went out to inspect and it is poop build up on the toes. Their feet are falling through way more then I thought and the toes are hitting the tray. I clean the tray every 3 days. Guess I need to up that!
@@katiegilbert6534 Are they the Jumbo sized quail, or standard size? With my jumbos I haven't really had any problem with their feet falling through. One thing you might try on the poop trays is I purchased a roll of butcher paper from Costco and I cut a piece a bit too large for the tray and put it in the poop tray. It makes cleaning a snap as long as you aren't wanting to keep the poop. You can just roll it up and throw it in a garbage bag. A friend I know used the type of plastic that come on rolls to wrap around furniture when you are moving. I haven't seen it but he told me he lays that down in the trays and likes it better than the butcher paper. I haven't tried that yet.
So I’m looking to raise Gambel Quail.
What layer cage would you recommend? I’m stuck between the 3 or 4 layer quail layer cage or the Partridge layer cage…?
I raise chickens n ducks also.
Gamble quail as I understand range from around 5 to 6.5 ounces when fully grown. My Coturnix jumbo meat maker quail grow up to 14 ounces. Mine did not start having a problem with the cages until they were fully grown, so I think your Gamble quail should do great in Hatching Time's normal quail cages. Just don't use their adult cages for your adolescent birds. Get a grow out pen for those. I now keep my quail in a backyard cage I built. You can find those videos on my channel if you are interested. Hope that is helpful.
@@theemergencyprepguy how many quail can you keep in one quail cage? (Non-large quail, smaller ones like Gambel or snowflake bobwhites)
@@melissaengelhard3662 Here is a link to the company's website. The numbers of quail they list are for standard sized quail like the bobwhite. Hope that helps. hatchingtime.com/collections/breeding-cage-systems/products/quail-1-layer-cage-breeding-pen
How many quails do you have in total and do they smell?
They don't smell as long as you keep the poop trays changed daily.
When you say jumbo meat makers quails, do you mean a different breed or just a fully grown quail?
I want to have 60 female quails (and 2-3 males) for eggs and meat. What type of setup do I need to have form chicks to adults?
Thank you.
Jumbo meat makers are a breed of Coturnix quail that have bread to be larger than normal quail and some of them are bread to produce larger eggs.
The hatching time brooder boxes I show in the video each hold a maximum of about 30 quail until they are feathered out, weaned off heat, and ready to go into a grow out pen (about 2.5 to 4 weeks depending on temperatures where you will be keeping them. So hopefully that will help you estimate how many of those you will need.
I start my 30 off in my grow out pen (which is my brooder box with the yellow bar doors instead of the solid clear) but then I quickly split them between two grow out pens just to give them more room. as they grow out. By this time (at least with the Coturnix) it is easy to tell the males from the females so I split them by gender.
About the time the females start laying eggs the roosters start crowing and searching for females to breed. About this time I choose however many of the the largest of the males to put in with the females at whatever male to female ratio I want. I like to have at least 5 females for each male.
The rest of the males I keep together in the grow out pen until they are ready to process and put in the freezer.
Once the females start laying they are usually big enough to fit into the adult quail cages with the egg roll outs. I would only get as many adult quail cages as you need to keep your breeders.
If you want to keep any quail outdoors here is a video of how I built my outside quail cage th-cam.com/video/dkOVpVqd1zg/w-d-xo.html
@@theemergencyprepguy Thank you very much for all the information.
@@Jesus_Said_I_AM_Almighty_God You are welcome.
@@Jesus_Said_I_AM_Almighty_God Also remember if you purchase the larger Coturnix quail (Jumbos) be sure and use the partridge cages with the egg roll out (same as their smaller bantam chicken cages) rather than their adult quail cages, as the holes are not big enough for Jumbo quail poop to go through, and it will be a mess and hurt the quail's feet.
@@theemergencyprepguy Do you recommend a good place which I can order those quails?
What are the names of those cages and where can I find them from?
You can find them at hatchingtime.com
From where one can get the hen cages and what is the price
Thanks for the question. You can get these at hatchingtime.com and they have the prices.
What in incubator did you buy?
The little giant incubator.
Do the short water cans come with brooder box?
Yes they do
@@theemergencyprepguy I have 5 rows of quail breeding cages and love them. I am trying to figure out what combination I need for my next order. Do the brood and breeding cages stack together or are they different sizes? I i am hatching out 40-60 quail per batch, I am thinking adding 2 rows breeder cages and 3 rows brood cages that can easily be made into grow cages. Or should I do 2 brood 1 grow and 2 breed? your thoughts?
@@alsupak2576 Thanks for the question. They have brooder cages, grow out cages and egg roll out (or adult) cages. Yes all of them are the same size and will stack in the same stack. The quail grow out cages and brooder cages are identical, the only difference is the doors and the brooders have a heater. Quail grow so fast that by the time they are 3 weeks old you can wean them off the heat and have them in grow out pens. So make sure you buy grow out pen doors for your brooder cages so you can turn them into grow out pens when they are ready and not have to move them.
@@alsupak2576 Also once the birds get about 6 to 8 weeks old they start laying eggs. At that point it is really handy to have them in a cage with a egg roll out (until process time). We found when they lay eggs in a grow out pen the eggs get pooped on and often broken depending on how many birds in the pen.
Good info thanks. That being said, how many 6 week old quail do you think is a comfortable fit for 1 row of 9.5” grow pens? How many hatchling to 3 week old do you think would work for 1 row?
All cages price.?
Not sure if you are asking my price to sell, or what they all cost me. Just go to hatching time's website and they have all the prices there.
Way way x10 too expensive.
It is pretty pricy. Here is an article with some videos showing a quail hutch I built myself. emergencyprepguy.com/building-a-quail-hutch-slightly-rednecked-style/