Tips for keeping quail at home for beginners
Keeping quails at home for beginners seems like an overwhelming task. Very often people are afraid to start this business. In fact, there is nothing to be afraid of. It is easier to grow quails than chickens. They do not need to allocate a lot of space; several quails can be kept even in a city apartment or on a balcony. Leaving is also not difficult. At a very low cost, tasty, healthy quail eggs and dietary meat are obtained from quails.
Keeping quails at home
Poultry house arrangement
Although the keeping of quails at home has been practiced for more than a hundred years, they still retain the habits of wild birds: on the street they can easily escape or fly away, therefore the most popular place where they can live is in cages.
Arrangement of cells
The requirements for a quail cage are as follows:
- The cage is made of metal or galvanized steel.
- Feeders and drinkers are best attached from the outside.
- The net on the cage should be with such a gap that the quails can only stick their head through the rods.
- The height of the cage should be 20-25 cm, if it is larger, the ceiling is made soft. The fact is that in case of danger, the quails fly up sharply (with a candle) and beat their heads against the ceiling. If the ceiling is hard, the quails may break.
- The area of a cage for 10 birds should be 30 × 75 cm.
- The floor can be slatted, but the gaps between the rods are made shallow so that the birds do not fall through.
- A mat of straw or shavings is placed on the floor.
- In the cage, a collection for eggs must be equipped, since the quails rush directly to the floor. Quail eggs are not white, but variegated, so they can easily get lost in the straw. It is better to line the tray with fresh sawdust.
- There should be a litter tray at the bottom. It is cleaned regularly so that dirt does not collect and an unpleasant odor does not spread.
To save space, the cells are stacked on top of each other in 2-3 tiers. How to make a cage correctly to contain quails, you can watch the video.
Arrangement of premises
In the poultry house, it is necessary to maintain the temperature regime within the range of 16-25 ° C. In the cold and heat, the birds will not fly well, and at temperatures of 0-5 ° C, the quails die. The room for keeping domestic quails should be well ventilated. Ventilation is arranged with a capacity of at least 5 m³ / h for 10 individuals. Humidity is maintained at 60-70%.
Particular attention should be paid to the lighting in the room where the quails live. If it is around the clock, hens will lay eggs twice a day. But such a regime quickly exudes quail, therefore experienced poultry farmers advise turning on the light for 14-16 hours.
When keeping quails at home, you can put the cage on the veranda or on the balcony if the temperature is normal there in winter. 3-4 females and one male are settled in one cage. If you make the cages larger, about 10 birds will fit in there.Every day you will receive at least 5-10 fresh eggs. Bird odor will not be felt if the cages are cleaned regularly.
Recently, outdoor keeping of domestic quails in an aviary has become popular. It allows you to grow a large number of birds in a small area without any problems. Aviary area - 0.2 m² for 20-30 individuals, height - not less than 1.5 m. Care is minimal. You just need to change the top layer of the litter from time to time and collect the eggs. But even in this case, the parent flock should be kept in a cage or a separate fence so that there is no disorderly crossing of weak individuals with each other and the breed does not degenerate.
Feeding and care of quails
Care, like keeping quails in ordinary home conditions, is not a problem. These birds require minimal attention. The cages are cleaned once a week or as they become dirty. Many farmers simply remove the bottom tray and place new litter on the floor of the cage. Once a week, the quails are given ash baths so that they can clean the feathers.
Feeding is pretty simple too. Food is given 2-3 times a day, poured into the feeders, which are located on the outer wall of the cages. For 1 individual there is approximately 25-35 g of feed per day, or in the region of 10 kg per year. Meat quails may eat a little more. It is best to give the quails compound feed for laying hens or for broiler chickens. Feed mixtures can be made up independently.
The basis of the diet of quails is grain. It must be crushed, since the bird cannot swallow large seeds. Vegetables, mineral supplements, fats, and protein are added to the grain. Here is an example of homemade compound feed:
- Barley - 100 g.
- Corn - 400 g.
- Bone meal - 1 tsp
- Unrefined sunflower or rapeseed oil - 1 tsp.
- Crushed shells, crushed chalk, salt - 1 tsp each.
You can feed 1 bird with this mixture for one and a half months. It is given both dry and steamed. In summer, it is good to add greens to the mixtures: nettle, dandelion leaves, Jerusalem artichoke, yarrow. It is also good to feed the birds with fresh zucchini and pumpkin. In winter, they give boiled potatoes, noodles, peelings of beets, carrots.
It is important that protein is present in the quail's diet. In summer, they can be fed with snails, earthworms collected in the garden. In winter, bloodworms, minced fish, fish or meat and bone meal are suitable for birds. Proteins that are present in food significantly increase egg production and accelerate weight gain.
Maintenance of the parent flock
To have quails at home, you can simply buy monthly chicks. But it is worth trying to breed these birds yourself. For this, it is necessary to form a parent flock. Females and males are kept together until three months of age, then the best individuals are selected and settled. 3-4 quail females and 1 quail male are placed in one cage.
The group must be formed taking into account the nature of the quail. New females are allowed to be housed in a cage within a month. But the male - only during the day. Productivity in quails lasts from 3 to 8 months, in quails - 3-6 months. Then they need to be sent for meat and a new parent herd to form.
You can create quail families in another way. 8 to 10 females are housed in a separate cage or paddock. The male is allowed to visit them temporarily, for several days. With this method of breeding, it is possible to keep fewer males, which saves on feed. But the technique has its drawbacks. In a short time, the male may not have time to cover all the layers. Quails often do not perceive the beginner and begin to peck him.
How to keep quails from the parent flock? It is best if a separate room is allocated to them. You can keep breeding birds in a common barn, but away from the main flock. The cages should be more spacious than for the rest of the birds.Often an aviary is used for breeding birds, even if the rest of the livestock is kept in cages. Males and females must be fed with vitamins. The light can be around the clock, but it is better to turn it on only for 15-16 hours so that the layers are not exhausted. The temperature is maintained at 18-22 ° С.
Incubation of eggs
Domestic quails have completely lost their instinct for incubating eggs and raising young, therefore the only way to breed them is by incubation. It is best to use an automatic or semi-automatic incubator for this purpose. Eggs are taken within a week, their weight should fluctuate between 9-11 g. Material that has lain for more than 7 days is unsuitable for incubation.
You can breed chicks at home in a standard chicken incubator. Up to 200 eggs are laid in it. If there is less material, it is worth purchasing a special mesh or lattice. Some farmers use cotton wool around their eggs to keep them from scattering and scattering around the hatchery. If you decide to seriously engage in quail breeding, it is better to buy a special incubator for small testicles.
The temperature regime during the incubation of quail eggs is 37.5-38.5 ° C. Humidity must be maintained at 60-70%. To do this, place a container with water at the bottom of the incubator. Eggs should be turned every 6 hours. At the edges, the temperature is always lower than in the center, so once a day the eggs should be swapped.
Young growth care
Chicks hatch from eggs after 17 days. They weigh only 8-10 g and are no larger than a bumblebee. It is very important to put the correct mesh in the incubator so that the babies do not fall into it with their paws. Clearances should be no more than 1-2 mm.
The successful rearing of small quails at home depends on the quality of the care in the first weeks. To make things easier, it's best to buy or DIY a brooder. You can keep small chicks in a heated box or under a table lamp. The temperature for the young in the first week is maintained at 35-36 ° C. By the second week, it is gradually reduced to 30 ° C.
Up to 3 weeks, lighting when keeping young animals should be around the clock. From 3 to 6 weeks, it is made intermittent according to the following scheme:
- 1 hour - light is on;
- 1 hour - the light is off;
- 3 hours - the light is on;
- 1 hour - the light is off.
From about 45 days, the daylight hours are set at 12 hours. In such conditions, quails grow well and ripen faster. From 3 months, birds are transferred to 17-hour daylight hours. Up to 3 weeks old, chicks must not be released from the box. They are tiny and can easily get lost or become a victim of pets.
Feeding chicks
Small quails can eat from the first hours after birth. Feeders and drinkers are installed inside the box or brooder where the chickens live. It is best to cover the food containers with a grate, into which the chicks can freely stick their heads, but not completely crawl in. The drinker is made in a vacuum type. If it is not possible to buy a ready-made one, they simply put an inverted jar of water on a plate.
The menu of little chicks must contain protein, carbohydrates, useful vitamins and minerals. This has a significant impact on their development and growth. The diet of young animals is as follows:
- Day-old chickens in the first days of life - finely chopped egg.
- 4-8 days of life - curd and small corn grits, you can replace it with a special feed for broiler chickens.
- 8-20 days of life - ready-made feed for small chickens
- 21 days of life - chickens are transferred to adult feed.
It is important to note that there is no special compound feed for quails, so you need to buy feed for layers or broiler chickens, depending on the quail breed. It is also allowed to give a regular grain mixture. For the prevention of diseases from the first days, chloramphenicol is added to the water. Chicks grow very quickly, already at 35-40 days they become sexually mature.At 2 months old, you can get a normal amount of eggs from layers, and send broilers for slaughter.
Quail fattening
The content of quails is short, if they expect to get meat from them. Males are sent to slaughter at 56-63 days. Females are fed for up to 11-12 months while they lay eggs. Chicks begin to feed intensively from the age of 20 days. They are moved to large cages, 30-40 individuals per 1 sq. m. In such conditions, they move little, eat well and recover.
Laying hens and males are separated, if possible, even in different poultry houses. The room temperature should be 20-24 ° C. Lighting for males is made weak: in such conditions they fight less, consume food better. For hens, the lights are brighter to get more eggs. The constant light on is very good for productivity.
The birds are fed 3-4 times a day. You can use compound feed for broilers or grain mixtures. Green grass and fodder fat must be added to them. The slaughter is carried out in a separate room. The head is chopped off with an ax or cut off with a sharp knife, after which the quail carcasses are hung by the legs to drain the blood. The whole procedure, with proper experience, does not take more than a minute.
As you can see, there is nothing difficult in keeping quails even for novice poultry breeders. The main thing is to start doing this business. To better understand the rules and features of breeding, you can watch the video. It is worth learning well the daily feeding rates, quail diseases and other nuances. Birds are raised not only for their own consumption, they can be a great help for their own business. After all, it is possible to receive and sell products all year round. Quail meat and eggs are quite expensive.