I have no experience with them myself, however my thought is that if the habitat deteriorated to the point that it could no longer support quail, simply adding a surrogator will not do the trick. You will have to make a serious overhaul to the land before I would waste the time on it, and even once you have re-established the habitat it will be very hard.

Man it cant happen anymore....I turned loose over 1200 birds in a prime place full of bunch grass for quail on the trinity bottom for 4 yrs.. they will last the year and you will see stragalers for a good while but they just arnt able to reproduce...to many factors against them these days and hay fields being the main one IMO. Even if you got 1000acres of natural habbitat it just dosnt seem to be enough. This was about 20 miles from Huntsville twords lovelady on 4,000 acres.....crazy thing was the ones that survived the longest were the ones that staye d around the barn and lodge in culverts

Finding safety in a culverts is a sign of day time and night time predation, both hawks and owls.

If you can get a few of the survivors to reproduce you might get the quail started again.

It might work for put and take.

I know i was just saying to do your own release hunts. I dnt like the birds out of a flight pen cuz tha dogs catch alot of them and the pen raised birds stink bad. but it is an easy process and for sure numbers

The problem with the fields/ hay fields is that they're often a monoculture. Quail have a fairly small home range and thick grass leaves nothing for brooding or escape cover. They need a large variety of cover in a small area. I re-established a few coveys around Brenham a few years back and I cut the fields into wavy lines 1 line cut 3 lines uncut and left as much wooly croton as possible and between a few cows, a little timber, semi- cut pastures, milo ect. We've had a few coveys arounds for years now and our neighbors see the quail now and then. Before no one had ever scene a quail bird.

I tried to get quail established on my land. After a few conversations with biologists (Eric Garza) and literature sent to me by Texas parks and wild life. It looks like a no go with pen raised birds. They have no natural instinct to survive. They are just looking for a place to die. We put out birds with the surrogator and it did it's job. The birds didn't do thiers. I did notice that if you already have a wild covey they lasted longer than if you only had pen raised birds. Here are a few reading materials. Good Luck.

The Birders Handbook: A field guide to the natural history of North American birds. New York: Simon and Schuster Inc.

Robbins, C.S., B. Bruun, and H.S. Zim. 1966. Birds of North America. New York: Western Publishing Company, Inc.

Lehmann, V.W. 1984. Bobwhites in the Rio Grande plain of Texas. Texas A&M University Press, College Station.

Oberholser, H.O. 1974. The bird life of Texas. University of Texas Press, Austin.
Texas Game, Fish, and Oyster Commission. 1945. Principal game birds and mammals of Texas. Texas Game, Fish, and Oyster Commission, Austin.

Jackson, A.S., C. Holt, and D.W. Lay. Bobwhite quail in Texas: habitat needs and management suggestions. Texas Parks & Wildlife, Austin. 21pp.