Quail for Dog Training

[Nulle]

I was asked in a pm about raising quail for dog training and think I will post it here also:
1. Those small foam incubators work well to hatch small groups of quail but I would not use them for pheasants.
2. Feed the chicks a Game Bird Chick Starter and NOT the regular chicken starter as it is over medicated also a Turkey starter will work also.
3. The dinking waterers should be the narrow non-drown type or you will have wet chicks and they will die fast.
4. Brooders lights should be 18" off the floor to start and raised as the bird grows and feathers.
5. The brooder floor should not be smooth or you will have splay legged chicks (ok after birds are a week or so old)
6. Keep hatched coverys together or they will fight with other aged birds.
7. Hit the web sites to find good hatching eggs and have them shipped FED EX rather then any other way. I have gotten mine out of Pooler GA and yet to have a broken egg with Fed Ex.
8. old metal stock tanks work great for brooders and put a wire top on them Right away as these little guys are flying in short order.
9. Birds can be kept in small cages without them fighting and a rabbit hutch works well.
10. Adult birds are kept on a Game Bird feed unless we are going to stock them in the wild and in that case the whole process is different and a whole new story.
Hope this helps and gets ya started on having your own birds to train with.