We first decided to keep some quail on a bit of a whim nearly three years ago. We'd actually popped down to a poultry supplier that we were using in order to pick up some new chickens when out of the corner of our eye we spotted some tiny little birdies that looked pretty cute...
We did a bit of research and was surpised at how small a space people seemed to provide for Quail, they might not need a zoo style aviary for all the swooping but to us half a square foot per bird just seemed cruel. Even some breeders were keeping twenty birds in a standard rabbit hutch. Given the sudden arrival of our little gang we jumped into action and using some old fence posts and left over chicken wire we created a decent sized area for the six little buddies - but couldn't decide what to house them in.
We thought about making a small shed but until we could arrange that we spotted an old cold frame abandoned in the garden by the previous owners, I know birds and glass aren't supposed to mix but being that they weren't going to fly into it at speed and given its location we didn't think that reflection would stress them out. Anyway with some sawdust on the floor and plenty of outdoor space inside their pen we decided to give it a go, it was essentially the style of a miniture greenhouse.
Over the next few days we tried several different options but the quails always seemed to stick to their little greenhouse and far from being stressed by it would seek it out - we were surprised that they seemed to spend so much more time inside than out, even in good weather.
Of course Quails are pretty low down in the food chain and they know it so like to keep themselves tucked away in foilage but they opted to stay inside so much that the large outer area of their pen was being mostly unused and they had effectively reduced their living space substantially - thinking time...
Partly in order to give them a bigger indoor space and partly because we wanted to relocate our chickens to a site where the quails lived we decided to make from scratch a large quail pen.
We opted to make an enclosure that was fifty/fifty indoor and out, it is set on short legs with an outer area covered in sand with tons of branch cut offs (and even some plastic aquarium plants) for them to scurry in. They then had a large sawdust covered indoor area about double the size of the little greenhouse which has a completely removable back wall for easy cleaning.
We were a little concerned that by using the indoor area they would be out of natural light (and we really love the eggs) so we opted to make the dividing panel between out and in from a piece of thick glass - they were so un-phased by glass in their last house that we went ahead and never looked back - all problems solved.
From what we can tell they seem really happy in the new place, they spend much more time outdoors (the roof is wiggly plastic transparent enough to let in light but milky enough they probably feel a bit less on show) and continued to lay well. They are extremely healthy, clean and well protected.
While we initially loved the idea of having a huge outdoor, walk in pen the reality is that our quail didn't make use of the large outdoor space that we initially gave them and in comparison love the new digs. At around 40 square foot of purpose built space for a few quail they are in comparative luxury.
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