Building a Safe Quail Habitat - Part 2 The Build

You can find the first part of this article here, which covers the siting, design criteria and materials and measurements for and of this build.

One of my dreams for my quail and which actually came into fruition after this build was for them to sit and raise their own chicks. Above is my Golden Italian quail, Caramel concentrating on doing the former! In the third and final part of this article, I'll look at the particular plants and structures I chose to complete the environment.

Preparing the Site and Laying the Bottom Board

The Bottom Board each made from a single large pallet length were laid in position and the earth was adjusted accordingly. At the end of the build a layer of brick was dug in to butt up to this board to prevent ingress from rats. It has worked so far!

Support Posts

These as previously stated were made of a long pallet wood plank cut lengthwise and then sandwiched together with nails.

The posts were then pointed at one end and driven into the ground in their designated places i.e. where they would support the windows.

Fitting the Outer Facing Board

Another long pallet length was fitted to the top of the posts on the outside face so as to be vertically inline with the bottom board.

Preparing and Fitting the Windows

The casement windows have a central vertical weatherstrip attached to one of the pair both on the inner and outer face, approximately a 4" length was removed from the top and bottom of the window, so as to permit the inner and outer board to fit snuggly against it.

Fitting the Windows

The windows rest on the bottom board.

They are sandwiched between the outer and inner board at the bottom and inner and outer barge boards at the top.

These boards in turn are screwed to the posts. This is why the posts are cut to the exact window thickness.

In the final segment, I'll share how the polythene was attached but the above and below images are most useful to illustrate these two stages of the construction.

Gable End

This comprises just outer boards, to which are screwed laths to sandwich the polythene.

Diagonal braces stiffen the structure.

Roof Carpentry - Construction

In order that the four roof trusses should be identical, a jig was created from two pallets, so that each truss could be replicated easily.

Each truss comprised 4 standard pallet planks nailed to 'stops' and a ridge plate. These were sandwiched between the planks at the bottom and top respectively.

The stops were trimmed to the slope line of the trusses with a saw once they they were nailed together as were the ridge plates (picture above). This is much easier than trying to gauge the slope and cut each stop and ridge plate beforehand.

Roof Carpentry - Fitting the Trusses

The first truss to go on was the one that butted onto the end of the existing greenhouse and was screwed to it.

The second was the one that fitted to the opposite gable end. This truss was screwed through the 'stop' to the top barge board of the house carpentry.

I then ran a string between these two, so as to make sure that I had all the other trusses in line.

I also ran a plumb line to check for vertical levels too.

Fitting the Wire and Roof Ridges

The wire was fitted to the first pair of trusses with planks to hold it into place. This was also to facilitate the screwing in of polythene covers in the Winter.

Two lengths of long pallet wood planks (purlins) were screwed either side of the ridge to join the trusses and form a rigid roof structure.

Fitting the Polythene

In some of the images above, I have shown the polythene already in place but in this final segment, I'll just go through how that was achieved. 

The polythene was positioned and held in place with spring clamps and then screwed to the roof trusses with pallet plank laths.

The edges of the polythene were secured with narrower laths and screwed in place (see detail below)

In the next and final segment, see below,  we will look at planting up, with suggestions for vegetation and fitting out the environment with ideas for additional features. 

Thanks for dropping by and do feel free to share experiences or ask for further information in the comment section. If you have enjoyed this piece and found it useful think about sharing it with your family and friends, on social media and also maybe about joining this blog and/or subscribing to my Youtube, Odysee  or BitChute Channel or even supporting us on Patreon or

It all helps to keep me going!

Until next time, all the very best from sunny Normandie! 

Sue

 

© 2021 Sue Cross

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If you haven't read any of the rare academic studies carried out into the habits of coturnix, then be aware that they postulated that the male cry is one of the most important triggers for nesting behaviour to begin. Therefore, as in all good romances, we'll begin with a song.

The other crucial factor in my opinion and which I considered even before I thought about providing a sympathetic environment, was food. As I've mentioned many times in these articles,  my quail are on a home-made 100% organic diet and to achieve this I need to 'cultivate' a series of compost heaps in which to provide a goodly supply of wild invertebrate protein. Wild invertebrates are more nutritious than shop-bought, you can actually find studies on-line which will give you the complete breakdown of nutritional values. It is logical when you think of it that the wild invertebrates will be on a much more suitable and vastly more interesting, to them, diet. To my mind sufficient wild protein has a threefold action on the quail:
-  it assures optimum nervous system function, with the abundance of B complex vitamins and L-methionine amino acid, which put the quail in a good condition, both physically and mentally to take on the challenges of raising chicks.
-  it proves to them that there is an abundant and necessary food source available, wild quail chicks are thought to consume a diet which consists almost exclusively of invertebrates.
-   it creates good quality food within the egg thus giving the quail chick the best start in life.

Joined inextricably with optimum food is the need for a suitable environment. There is in fact a golden rule for quail that their food and cover should have a 'friendly' relationship. Quail like to feel secure when feeding and in particular when brooding chicks. Although precocial, quail chicks, in my experience, hang on to and are carried by the mother, so as to keep warm and safe whilst moving from one feeding site/hunting ground to another. An abundance of suitable cover not only provides the environment for invertebrates to be hunted at leisure by the chicks but also a place the mother and chicks may rest in safety between feeding periods. In my experience and no doubt due to the high basal metabolism of the quail, the chicks have much shorter sleeping and feeding periods than hen chicks. As finding and catching invertebrates is a more onerous task than just feeding on available seeds or vegetation, anything you can do to increase invertebrate levels in your quail environment can only further encourage quail to pair off and nest. I sometimes wonder if this isn't why many people report that quail nest in wood piles, as these are ideal environments for the fostering of a variety of invertebrate life. In our quail run, I provide an 'en suite' compost bin of rotted compost, this not only provides an abundance of woodlice, earwigs, beetle larvae and the highly nutritious brambling or compost worms but also encourages ants to nest. Ant eggs, witness Fred Jr., below, are highly nutritious and are even being trialled for chronic vitamin B12 deficiency in humans.

With regard to the picking of nesting sites, the only area I know of here that has a high proportion of wild quail nesting is our local organic dairy farm. This has predominately grass and broadleaf, meadows and Winter forage crops, including high protein alfalfas and clovers that also remain green and palatable for a lot longer than the grasses do. It also has small fields and old hedges, which are optimum environments for wildlife. Some years ago. we were lucky enough to have access to an old meadow, as a feeding ground for my chicks and where they could free-range with their mother hen. Traditional meadows are ideal, having only 30% grass, with furthermore these being native rather than cultivated grasses, interspersed with a wide variety of flowering herbaceous plants many of them melliferous and ideal for attracting a wide variety of insects and other invertebrates.

The other and very important factor involved in providing a safe area for my quail was that it would allow them to sleep and thus nest on the ground or in the case of one couple, on the compost heap! Last year due to a feral cat, (the only down-side of living at the sea-side), I decided to continue putting my quail in their communal house at night, even though this meant disturbing my pair-bonded couple. I believe this is the reason why they never nested. My quail couples sleep together at night with their wing feathers interlinked, I've still got a little tweaking in the quail area so as to make them invisible to any feline or other night-time prowler peeking in through the glass.

So now having my two pair bonded quail couples, a fully stocked compost heap and a planted safe quail area, fingers crossed that the weather gets a little warmer and my quail begin to feel the urge to hear the patter of tiny claws.

In the next part of this article I will share the design and fabrication of the quail area from recuperated windows and pallet planks and this will include a film of the process too.

Thanks for dropping by and if you have enjoyed this piece and found it useful think about sharing it and also maybe about joining this blog and/or subscribing to my Youtube channel or even supporting us on Patreon:

Please also feel free to ask questions or make comments in the section below.

All the very best,
Sue
©Sue Cross 2017

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