NEw Quail coops and recall house

[douglasgraham]

Hello all I’m new here. I have been reading all the great info from you guys and gals before I started my quail project. Here are a couple of photos of my unfinished grow out pen and my finished recall coop. I’ve been lurking around since the spring and I’m finally getting started. I already have a brooding house for chickens that’s big enough to add a quail operation for at least 100 birds. I'm now working on a grow-out pen and will start the other as soon as I fine-toon the one you see in the works now. I'm going to add a flight pen later. I'm doing this project for birds to train my dogs with. I also just want to try and raise my own birds because it seems like it would be fun, as I love to raise chickens and I’m tired of paying for birds so the dogs can work. My wife is happy about this because she wants to hear the bobwhite call we are missing from our land these days.

[honda2hummer]

these are great pictures, we all love to see how other people raise their birds
great job on the cages

[douglasgraham]

Thanks I can't wait for the birds to get here. I'll keep you posted on how things work out.

[aKirA]

looks good there doug.

my only suggestion if you have predators lurking around is...use 1/2" hardware clothe for fencing. Looks like you are using chicken wire at the moment? If the opening is too big, predators can get their paws in there and kill your birds. good luck.

[Reeves]

Any light get into the bottom pen ? If not they may not use it.

[douglasgraham]

"looks good there doug.
my only suggestion if you have predators lurking around is...use 1/2" hardware clothe for fencing. Looks like you are using chicken wire at the moment? If the opening is too big, predators can get their paws in there and kill your birds. good luck."

Thanks I had not thought of that! I'll change it out this weekend. I had made that tractor for chickens to weed the garden and just converted it to a recall house. Yes we have lots of predators so thanks again for the suggestions.
   

[douglasgraham]

"Any light get into the bottom pen ? If not they may not use it."

No it does not. I'm going to have this pretty far from a power sorce. I'll look into some sort of battery powered light to get them to use the house. So water and food will not be enough? Thanks for being sohelpful guys I will be ahead of game thanks to you all.

[stewaw]

I had a problem with acceptance into the house also.  Tried lighting, replaced a door with wire to let in light and nothing seemed to work.  I finally gave up and accepted the fact that my birds will only go in there in really bad weather (which they do).  I did cover a small portion with a simple metal cover for shade and they prefer it. A rainshower or snow and they simply huddle up and ride it out.  Occasionally I'll have a hen that prefers nesting in the house but for the most part it only gets used by birds that are being bullied. Works fine for me. 

P.S.  It is nice waking up to covey/breeding calls.

David

[douglasgraham]

Thanks for the info David I'll see how it goes and I'll keep you posted. If all it takes is a small tin roof over their head then fine thats what I'll do. BUt how about putting food in there, wont that make them go in?

[chickmatt]

hey i was wondering if you had any plans for this pen on the bottom... i just hatched  30 bobwhites and i have a brooder but no where to put them when they get bigger

[douglasgraham]

Hey Matt I have built lots of poultry housing and this was originally built as a tractor for sebright chickens. The “tractor” is a movable self-contained coop. You move it every couple of days as the chickens weed the ground and fertilize as you go along. I designed it out of my head after looking at a book by the name, “Poultry House Construction” by Michael Roberts. I got it from Amazon for a couple of dollars. The coop itself is just designed as a triangle using 2X4’s as the main structure, one sheet of plywood to build the house and one sheet of tin roofing to cover it. The measurements are 4x4x8 feet. The house has a hardwire floor and it opens from both ends. All I did to convert it to a recall coop was to put a one-way funnel into the cop area and I’ll replace the chicken wire in the coop area with hardwire. It took a day to build it. I may even put a floor in the coop area because I hear that quail do not do well on the ground. I'll see as this is all a learning experance for me right now.

[CharlieHorse]

Any light get into the bottom pen ? If not they may not use it.

I had a problem with acceptance into the house also.  Tried lighting, replaced a door with wire to let in light and nothing seemed to work.  I finally gave up and accepted the fact that my birds will only go in there in really bad weather (which they do).  I did cover a small portion with a simple metal cover for shade and they prefer it. A rainshower or snow and they simply huddle up and ride it out.  Occasionally I'll have a hen that prefers nesting in the house but for the most part it only gets used by birds that are being bullied. Works fine for me. 

P.S.  It is nice waking up to covey/breeding calls.

David

I second that. I've found that the bobs don't care to go inside either, they'd rather hang out in the weather just under on old piece of tin roofing.