The Quail Motel for Micro Farming

Quail cages. Lift out of the tray to clean and replace wire cage back into the tray. Doors flap inward. Trying different feed and water options.

Coturnix are great layers and handle confinement very well.  Unlike Bobwhite and California quail, corts as they are know, have been domesticated far longer so they are more docile.

This was built as an experiment into small lot production.  This would easily fit on a balcony or in a corner of the garage (where I had it).  In an emergency it could be kept in the mudroom of the house in case of abnormally cold temps.

The drawers come out and the cages lift off for quick and easy cleaning. The materials are easy to find and build with. This was in use for about a year before I sold it to make room in the garage for other projects.

The frame comes from a single 4×8 sheet of OSB or plywood, cut down into the sides, floor supports, and tray guides — no need to buy multiple sheets for a bank of cages. For the cage walls, 1/2-inch hardware cloth is the standard choice for quail — a 16-inch wide roll covers most cage panels in one piece with no seam, and the tight mesh keeps the birds in and small predators out, while still being easy to cut and staple to the wood frame — this tool is what I use to cut and form the wire. The sliding trays underneath work best lined with something absorbent, like a shallow layer of pine shavings or a puppy pee pad, and either way you want at least a slight lip on the tray edge so nothing spills over when you pull it out to clean. If you stack cages to save floor space, leave enough gap between tiers for the trays to slide freely and for droppings to land in the tray below instead of on the birds in the cage underneath.

The cages all have individual waterers to make it easy and fast to care for them — these are actually rabbit waterers, but chickens and quail take to them fine. You may need to dip a bird’s beak in a few times to teach them, but once one figures it out the rest learn by watching, and you end up with reliably clean water instead of a dish that gets kicked full of bedding.

For feed, these feeder cages work well for water or food, and can mount inside or outside the main cage. If you mount one outside, cut a hole big enough for the birds to feed through and smooth the cut wire edge with tape or automotive door edge guard — a raw cut edge can injure them.

Cleaning the cages is fast if you use the pelleted wood for pellet burning stoves.  The pellets absorb moisture fast and thoroughly so that smells don’t permeate so badly.  Corts are not as smelly as chickens but dust can be an issue with some cheap pellets.

Overall it went well.  The birds provided about an egg a day and fertility was always high, so we had a great hatch rate.  Feed to meat and egg ration is good and the savings on space by stacking makes good use of small room.  The birds like to be handled if you handle them from chicks, and that makes it more fun when you can play with the birds everyday out in an open area.

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