I Let my Pen Quail sit nest

We decided due to the heat this year we would not utilize our incubators to hatch quail, but rather see if the hen's would sit the nest long enough to hatch out their eggs. My wife and I were feeding the quail yesterday and low and behold we had baby chicks running around everywhere. I would also like to report that our release birds last year did pretty well and we believe we had close to a 50% survival from the birds we are seeing.

Greatness. Keep us informed.

Great.!

Here are some of the little ones, we have had about 20 hatch out and we have lost 3

That's awesome

Very cool.

Would you look at that. Who said they wouldn't reproduce. Thanks for sharing

Heck yes, that deserves another

I took our new black lab pup up to our pens, and honest as the day is hot she took off into some tall grass outside the pens and brought back a young quail chick in her mouth covered with slobber but still alive. All I can figure is that some of our release birds nested and were bringing their chicks back to the pens where they were raised. I have to say she has a nose and cant pass up water. So much for tracking deer I guess!

How big is your pen?

Hey Jorge, are pens are fairly small. We have 4 pens the average 10'x20' each, 3 of the pens are soft roof and the 3rd pen has a hard roof and sides for the chicks.

Pretty decent size man. You avg 1 sqft per bird?

I don't have a bunch of birds in the pens right now, so I would say 1 sqft or better

I had a Johnny house for years. I really enjoyed my quail. I had one of the best training quail I've ever seen. I named him Rocket. He would fly out when the top door was opened and find a great bush. He'd flush if the dogs got too close. A couple of flushes and he would fly right back to the Johnny house and into the funnel. Rocket got sick and died. I buried him.

The quail can become flight conditioned by jumping up to the ledge in your Johnny house. I gave mine away several years ago. Here's a picture for you.

Very Nice

Good job