Comparing Standard Pens with Quail Pens
Which pens should you purchase for housing your quail? Will chicken or rabbit pens work? What do quail need that would make chicken or rabbit pens inadequate?
Check out the following pictures of pens available to choose from
$250
Quick Quail double decker pen interior
Picture coming. Classic kit for purchase at farm stores.
Consider the cost per square foot. Callahan's sells two pens, a large at 2'x4' (8 sf) for $250 or $31/sf. This is picked up at Callahan's. The pen is not painted and has no equipment such as a drip pan, water, or feed system. It also does not have a cover for sun or rain protection, and no lighting for maintaining the laying period of the hens. The smaller 2'x2' pen is $195, or $48.75/sf.
You will be needing a minimum of 6 sf for 12 quail (2 hens/sf), and the highest animal welfare standard for hens is 2 sf per hen (organic certification standards). Keep in mind that is for an average 7 lb hen, thus 3.5 lbs/sf. With quails, they're about 0.75 lbs/bird, so at 2 hens/sf, you are housing them at a rate of 1.5 lbs/sf or 233% improved animal welfare standards as per spacing requirements.
What unique penning requirements do quail have?
Quail have been domesticated for 300 years by the Japanese, where every household has a bamboo cage at the back of the house, housing the quail. The best pens are slightly sloped so that the eggs roll out into a holding area at the bottom. Thin bamboo strips are used for the quail, so that the bird droppings can easily fall through.
Quail Spacing
As mentioned above, the comparable standard for animal welfare is lbs/square foot, when considering just space requirements alone. The space standard for certified organic chickens is 2 square feet (sf) both inside and outside. Domesticated quail do not roam outside their pens, so lets make that 2 sf total (inside their pen), for approximately 7 lbs/2 sf or 3.5 lbs/sf. The largest of the quail laying hens weigh about 14 ounces or 3/4 of a lb, so that would mean 4.66 quail/sf to equal the certified organic laying hens standard. With a 2' x 3' single tier pen, you are providing the hens with 6 sf for 12 hens or 2 hens/sf, providing superior animal welfare (in terms of space) to the quail. When you purchase the double decker pen, that standard improves even more to 1 hen/sf. That is superior to chickens.
Callahan's
Large 8 sfQuick Quail
Double DeckerTSC
DIYPen Price$259$250$500$/SF$31$20$20
Does the pen need to be painted?
As a farmer, I can tell you that bird droppings are very high in nitrogen, and that means rust and rot of unprotected surfaces. We even take the extra step of painting your pen twice, first with the KILZ interior coat and then with an exterior finish. This makes it possible for you to power wash the quail droppings off the hard surfaces of the pen. (Typically you do the first pass of high-pressure water to blast off any dust or easily removed dirt, and to let harder things soak for a few minutes followed by a more concentrated effort at difficult to remove dirt). Cleaning your pen can be done as often as every 3 months, but usually every 6 months. This means that exposed wood is going to get lots of cleaning.
Another Quick Quail penning feature is that we place the metal (fabric metal) on the inside of the frames, so that the droppings don't sit on the wood of the pen sides. This reduces odors, flies and work cleaning your pens.