Here is a peek inside the quail shed. I’m more than a little rednecked when it comes to building things with my limited woodworking tools, but it all seems to work well.
My daughter and I built the shed. The floor is covered with vinyl, to keep moisture off of the plywood. The walls are mostly insulated, but need finished. Ceiling is fully insulated, but I’ve got to put paneling over (under? ha!) that. The outside louvers are made of fence pickets. They work very well. I haven’t had to worry about rain one bit, and the sun doesn’t beat down on the birds. They still have a full view.
I built the hutches out of 2×3’s and plywood, covered with 1/4″ hardware cloth. The doors are of pine boards I ripped with a small circular saw. I don’t own a table saw, as the one I tried frightened me. The birds seem quite happy in their homes. There are four levels per hutch. The middle of each level is a big sandbox, and the birds live atop pine and straw. No wire floors here, as I think that would be dreadful. Yes, there is staining from poop. I scrape with a sharp blade, but it will always be wallpapered inside the hutch by the birds’ artwork.
I keep the doors open whenever we’re home in the summer. Which is most of the time. Except night time, as that would frighten and endanger the birds. In the winter, it’s closed, and I use Thermocubes to run two space heaters whenever it falls below freezing. Just enough to keep things above freezing.
I don’t use any automatic watering system, as I worry about cleanliness, things breaking, and winter cold. So a boot tray, buckets, and gravity drinkers make up my high-tech system. In the winter and on super hot days, the water is changed at least three times per day. Sometimes more. Otherwise, twice a day.
There are string lights behind the non-window side of each hutch (each hutch has a floor-to-ceiling window), and there are ceiling lights in the shed. I don’t keep my birds on extended lighting during the winter, as I believe they need that break from laying eggs. During that time, we eat the eggs I freeze during the summer months.
This tour was during breakfast snack and fresh water time. They get safflower and thistle each morning, along with a leafy green. Usually kale from our garden in the summer, but today it was Romaine lettuce. Can you see how much they hate it? 😉
Eggs are collected three times per day in the laying season. Most are normally lain in the afternoon and very early evening here.
I used to keep birds in ground runs and a walk-in aviary, but bird flu being in the area had me greatly worried. Now everyone is safe.
And now you know where your quail eggs come from, and that the birds are raised as family.
