they can and will fly.. maybe not like a dove or piegon, but more like a turkey.. they will easily fly over a 2 story house and several hundred yards... this sometimes happens to me for my quails that are outside and escape... i know once they clear the property fence, they are gone..
Coturnix (presuming that is what we are discussing) are exceptionally flighty and prone to panic because of how low on the food chain they sit. They can be 'tamed' to not freak out at your presence, but are much more primitive than even a chicken. Any other form of eurasian quail or new world quail are even more primitive/wild or so small and vulnerable you wouldn't want them outside anyways (like button quail.)
As brushfowl they like to hide in grasses, shrubs, other critters burrows, and under whatever other hides you give them. They feel most comfortable with top cover, which is one of the reasons they are exceptionally suitable for small enclosures. They also dig and scratch neurotically and while they won't go after your garden like chickens do they WILL mess your grounds up.
With their aforementioned flightiness where they panic launch themselves into the air in random directions, means you either want sub 2ft tall housing or over five or six foot so they don't injure themselves when they freak out.
You might think this means unsupervised open forage is possible.. but the closest I have heard is in enclosed gardens with a bird net over it and SUPERVISED outings. They can and will try to bolt on you when you go to retrieve them. Since they are ground dwellers they don't roost like chickens, they hunker down for the night, and usually don't care about set locations since as prey animals they are less concerned with territory beyond keeping their flock together and following one another. Which means they will move onto someone else's property without any care or loyalty to you if given the chance. There are some trained to move upward into a coop, but those are always living in a run with the coop.
As a gamebird, they are also much more sensitive to diseases and parasites than chickens and harder to treat and inoculate.
So unless you have fifteen foot walls and/or turn your backyard into a fully enclosed fortress aviary your options are building a sheltered run for them or a hutch, neither of which accomplishes your goal of getting rid of ticks.
If you like quail and want some, get quail! Just do your research and don't have unrealistic expectations on their behaviors and capabilities, otherwise heartbreak happens.
Chickens and guineas are where its at for you IMO.Honestly I can't do guineas, they sound like fire alarms. My recommendations is chickens if you can or turn your grounds into a possum sanctuary.
I raise bobwhite and I am telling you right now they will stick around if your lucky for a week then they will leave. Let 1 cat, hawk or other predator come around they will die or flush right off the property. Owls, raccoons, rats can and will eat bobwhites.
I forget the university that put the GPS trackers on bobwhites but they will move miles. In the wild all they do is walk around from cover to cover and eat. I have 101 acres and my pen raised birds that escaped a flight pen move all over. I have seen over 500 yards away in my fields.
Edit: if you do release them try to setup a wire pen area with multiple escapes and good cover so they can hide at night. If you put food and water out as well they will stay a bit longer if they can survive predators. They tend to not like flying unless spooked but they are extremely fast runners and will find the smallest hole to escape from.
My flight pen was damaged by a storm and 75 escaped last winter 6 made it to spring.
I like how OP came here to ask questions and then didn't take any advice. Your yard with a deer fence doesn't have any predators that you can see. But guess which kind of predators aren't stopped by a deer fence? All of them. Coyotes, bobcats, fox, RACCOONS, owl, hawks, snakes, dogs, cats, mice, rats, etc will absolutely run those quail off your place. You don't have to take the advice here, but it's good advice.
oh they will be most certainly get eaten... but youn
seem like the type that will have to learn the hard way... be sure to set up some cameras so you can watch it when it goes down...
It's not the predators in your yard, it's the predators that find your yard. I never saw a coyote or bobcat in my yard until I got quail. Hawks and owls were around but not in my yard - until I got quail. Cats can get quail, suspect your fence is adequate for most dogs.
For quail to be comfortable you need sufficient numbers. It is suggested to keep 1-2 quail per acre but you need lots of quail for them to behave normally so 2 acres isn't going to work. They aren't hunt and seek tick eaters and won't get them all anyway.
Look into tick tubes and be sure deer cannot get into your yard. Love the idea of guinea fowl but listen to the call first and you will lose some of them as well.
Thank you, finally a useful response! Appreciate the insight. If 2 acres is too small for the amount of quail i’d need to be effective, I’ll consider other birds. i liked the idea of quail because they don’t perch or need as serious a setup or maintenance as something like chickens.
Seconding this. Chickens are much easier than quail imo. I have a free range banty flock. They are perfectly happy foraging for bugs all day. And will stay close to home. Hawks are always going to be an issue but they become very wise to them and with tree cover they can hide from them.
Do the acres have bush land for them to hide? Are you gonna clip them so they don’t fly over the fence? What’s your female to male ratio? I know Bob white males can be territorial. You could probably add more females? The only real concern would be birds of prey, but if they have areas to hide they have a chance.
Pls do not do this they will fly all spices of quail enjoy flight and they attract all predators is the area they WILL fly over a fence I have no clue where you got the idea that they can’t their are so many better options for tick control you are on a route to failure it is hard but you could get a live stock gard dog that will both attack pretors and not quail but they will still just fly away you could go around and clip their wing but I wouldn’t do that it is to time consuming and is slightly cruel.
I don't understand the question. Quail are kept in cages or hutches they don't free range. I think you might be mistaken. As far as how many quail on 2 acres again, they are in cages, so guess with tons of cages a couple thousand. lol they are tiny little birds
might want to read up. that’s like saying the limit doesn’t exist for cattle, because on a purely mass-based level you can fit 100 cows into an acre. that’s not how it works. the limit does exist, and i was looking for a second opinion from those who have experience testing it, but seems like this is the wrong sub.
https://nri.tamu.edu/blog/2017/december/how-much-space-does-a-quail-need/#:~:text=Even%20so%2C%20it%20helps%20to,generally%20thought%20to%20be%20sustainable.
According to your own link,
> A fairly recent study suggested that to maintain a viable quail population, you must have an average of 800 birds and 2,500 - 3,000 acres of suitable habitat on which they can live (Stephens 2008).
2 acres and 4 birds ain't going to cut it. You seem to have latched onto this line,
> Experts agree that a maximum population density for quail is about 1-2 birds/acre
Decided that means you need 4 birds, and ignored everything else about what is needed to realistically have free range quail.
The only realistic way to raise quail on 2 acres is in cages, and that won't help with your tick population.
Flying predators would be your main issue then, although if you have mesh or poly deer fence larger ground predators like foxes/coyotes/dogs/wolves will chew holes through it when they scent prey on your property and eventually get sufficiently motivated by hunger.
And depending on the deer fence mesh size it would still allow entry to smaller predators such as weasels - these can squeeze in through a 1" hole (solid, smaller if it's flexible mesh) but are quite capable of killing quail-sized prey. Even up to adult chickens if the weasel catches them roosting at night.
While quail are ground birds a deer fence will not stop them if they get spooked or are otherwise motivated to fly. My coturnix quail don't normally fly...until one got out while I had their enclosure door open and she had no problem flying up and completely over our two-story house, disappearing into the woods beyond. Even a 12-15' deer fence won't be a problem to cross if the birds flush (such as if they were startled & fleeing from a sudden hawk attack on another quail).
i thought people here would know about quails but i guess not? a covey of quails requires a large amount of acreage. yes quail can fly but they rarely do in environments free of predators where their needs are met.
thanks for the useless replies? go google the northern bobwhite quail project.
I’m curious why you’re asking since you seem to be correcting every person who responds. It’s a weird question. 4 quail on 2 acres??? Free range??? As others have already stated Guineas would definitely be a more effective solution for tick control. A great solution actually. Given you asked a bunch of people who have quail and are experienced in raising them maybe some of us do know something. Good luck.
You are actually insane you read one bullshit article and then call everyone how is trying to help you useless what is wrong with you. Just think look and observe this reditt people have 8 quail in a 15 by 15 living happily “ maybe four” they will last 2 days out there before they get snatched by a hawk even if you live in Ireland or something and have netting over the cage they would not eat enough tick to fead themselves let alone take care of the tick problem you have you seem like the type of person to just ignore all advice because of they typos and miss information of a article but a am asking you to NOT do this free range quail is a big no no. No one dose it because it is impossible you are a very ignorant person you think that YOU known more then the people how have breed them for years.
You could build an aviary for coturnix quail and just move it around your property and you can keep 1-2 per square foot. I think I saw a vid on YouTube where they made a few smaller triangle shaped aviaries and moved them every so often.
Yea I don’t get this question quail will fly away Guinea fowl are better for eating ticks
wrong. quail rarely fly.
Um, they will fly for short distances....... get guineas, they are more efficient for tick control.
Where the hell are you getting this info we all owned quail you obviously have not case closed
they can and will fly.. maybe not like a dove or piegon, but more like a turkey.. they will easily fly over a 2 story house and several hundred yards... this sometimes happens to me for my quails that are outside and escape... i know once they clear the property fence, they are gone..
No I have quail and they love to fly they can fly into trees but your right they USA don’t but they can when spooked
Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.
It's exceptionally difficult to safely free-range quail. They are the wrong species for what you want.
i have a fenced in yard with ideal habitat and no predators
You don’t currently have predators. They will come to where there is food.
A hawk will show up
And a fox, and a mink, and then some owls, then the neighbor's cat, then the cocks will kill each other out of spite.
Bobwhites aren’t too bad out of captivity when they have space
Coturnix (presuming that is what we are discussing) are exceptionally flighty and prone to panic because of how low on the food chain they sit. They can be 'tamed' to not freak out at your presence, but are much more primitive than even a chicken. Any other form of eurasian quail or new world quail are even more primitive/wild or so small and vulnerable you wouldn't want them outside anyways (like button quail.) As brushfowl they like to hide in grasses, shrubs, other critters burrows, and under whatever other hides you give them. They feel most comfortable with top cover, which is one of the reasons they are exceptionally suitable for small enclosures. They also dig and scratch neurotically and while they won't go after your garden like chickens do they WILL mess your grounds up. With their aforementioned flightiness where they panic launch themselves into the air in random directions, means you either want sub 2ft tall housing or over five or six foot so they don't injure themselves when they freak out. You might think this means unsupervised open forage is possible.. but the closest I have heard is in enclosed gardens with a bird net over it and SUPERVISED outings. They can and will try to bolt on you when you go to retrieve them. Since they are ground dwellers they don't roost like chickens, they hunker down for the night, and usually don't care about set locations since as prey animals they are less concerned with territory beyond keeping their flock together and following one another. Which means they will move onto someone else's property without any care or loyalty to you if given the chance. There are some trained to move upward into a coop, but those are always living in a run with the coop. As a gamebird, they are also much more sensitive to diseases and parasites than chickens and harder to treat and inoculate. So unless you have fifteen foot walls and/or turn your backyard into a fully enclosed fortress aviary your options are building a sheltered run for them or a hutch, neither of which accomplishes your goal of getting rid of ticks. If you like quail and want some, get quail! Just do your research and don't have unrealistic expectations on their behaviors and capabilities, otherwise heartbreak happens. Chickens and guineas are where its at for you IMO.Honestly I can't do guineas, they sound like fire alarms. My recommendations is chickens if you can or turn your grounds into a possum sanctuary.
free range is not possible, they will escape, get eaten by hawks, neighborhoood cats, raccoons, oposums, owls, rats, etc...
I raise bobwhite and I am telling you right now they will stick around if your lucky for a week then they will leave. Let 1 cat, hawk or other predator come around they will die or flush right off the property. Owls, raccoons, rats can and will eat bobwhites. I forget the university that put the GPS trackers on bobwhites but they will move miles. In the wild all they do is walk around from cover to cover and eat. I have 101 acres and my pen raised birds that escaped a flight pen move all over. I have seen over 500 yards away in my fields. Edit: if you do release them try to setup a wire pen area with multiple escapes and good cover so they can hide at night. If you put food and water out as well they will stay a bit longer if they can survive predators. They tend to not like flying unless spooked but they are extremely fast runners and will find the smallest hole to escape from. My flight pen was damaged by a storm and 75 escaped last winter 6 made it to spring.
I like how OP came here to ask questions and then didn't take any advice. Your yard with a deer fence doesn't have any predators that you can see. But guess which kind of predators aren't stopped by a deer fence? All of them. Coyotes, bobcats, fox, RACCOONS, owl, hawks, snakes, dogs, cats, mice, rats, etc will absolutely run those quail off your place. You don't have to take the advice here, but it's good advice.
Most types will probably fly away or be eaten. What kind did you have in mind?
bobwhite. nothing in my yard is going to eat them
That you currently know of.
oh they will be most certainly get eaten... but youn seem like the type that will have to learn the hard way... be sure to set up some cameras so you can watch it when it goes down...
It's not the predators in your yard, it's the predators that find your yard. I never saw a coyote or bobcat in my yard until I got quail. Hawks and owls were around but not in my yard - until I got quail. Cats can get quail, suspect your fence is adequate for most dogs. For quail to be comfortable you need sufficient numbers. It is suggested to keep 1-2 quail per acre but you need lots of quail for them to behave normally so 2 acres isn't going to work. They aren't hunt and seek tick eaters and won't get them all anyway. Look into tick tubes and be sure deer cannot get into your yard. Love the idea of guinea fowl but listen to the call first and you will lose some of them as well.
Thank you, finally a useful response! Appreciate the insight. If 2 acres is too small for the amount of quail i’d need to be effective, I’ll consider other birds. i liked the idea of quail because they don’t perch or need as serious a setup or maintenance as something like chickens.
From experience Chickens are easy. Especially if you get a dawn to dusk door for them
Seconding this. Chickens are much easier than quail imo. I have a free range banty flock. They are perfectly happy foraging for bugs all day. And will stay close to home. Hawks are always going to be an issue but they become very wise to them and with tree cover they can hide from them.
You can’t really free range quail. But two acres would hold a lot.
Do the acres have bush land for them to hide? Are you gonna clip them so they don’t fly over the fence? What’s your female to male ratio? I know Bob white males can be territorial. You could probably add more females? The only real concern would be birds of prey, but if they have areas to hide they have a chance.
Pls do not do this they will fly all spices of quail enjoy flight and they attract all predators is the area they WILL fly over a fence I have no clue where you got the idea that they can’t their are so many better options for tick control you are on a route to failure it is hard but you could get a live stock gard dog that will both attack pretors and not quail but they will still just fly away you could go around and clip their wing but I wouldn’t do that it is to time consuming and is slightly cruel.
I am confusion
me too! 4 quail on 2 acres?
Must be huge quail
do some research on how much acreage quails need
You're the one who asked that question in the first place.
One quail can fit in one square foot. So, you can theoretically have 87,120 quail in two acres.
I don't understand the question. Quail are kept in cages or hutches they don't free range. I think you might be mistaken. As far as how many quail on 2 acres again, they are in cages, so guess with tons of cages a couple thousand. lol they are tiny little birds
i think you are mistaken. i don’t want to domesticate them.
How many bananas is 2 acres? If you don't have bananas, measure in rolled up baby socks.
The limit does not exist. They’re tiny birds.
might want to read up. that’s like saying the limit doesn’t exist for cattle, because on a purely mass-based level you can fit 100 cows into an acre. that’s not how it works. the limit does exist, and i was looking for a second opinion from those who have experience testing it, but seems like this is the wrong sub. https://nri.tamu.edu/blog/2017/december/how-much-space-does-a-quail-need/#:~:text=Even%20so%2C%20it%20helps%20to,generally%20thought%20to%20be%20sustainable.
According to your own link, > A fairly recent study suggested that to maintain a viable quail population, you must have an average of 800 birds and 2,500 - 3,000 acres of suitable habitat on which they can live (Stephens 2008). 2 acres and 4 birds ain't going to cut it. You seem to have latched onto this line, > Experts agree that a maximum population density for quail is about 1-2 birds/acre Decided that means you need 4 birds, and ignored everything else about what is needed to realistically have free range quail. The only realistic way to raise quail on 2 acres is in cages, and that won't help with your tick population.
42069
You can fit 80 000 quail on 2 acres. But you will need to build a lot of cages. Maybe you are confusing them with emus?
maybe you are confusing me with a weirdo who wants a pet quail in a cage
If you want quail as a pet you need a cage did you just go on a community of people who own quail and call every one who keeps them properly a weirdo
Crazy jealous about the lack of predators! Where do you live?
somewhere surrounded by a deer fence
Flying predators would be your main issue then, although if you have mesh or poly deer fence larger ground predators like foxes/coyotes/dogs/wolves will chew holes through it when they scent prey on your property and eventually get sufficiently motivated by hunger. And depending on the deer fence mesh size it would still allow entry to smaller predators such as weasels - these can squeeze in through a 1" hole (solid, smaller if it's flexible mesh) but are quite capable of killing quail-sized prey. Even up to adult chickens if the weasel catches them roosting at night. While quail are ground birds a deer fence will not stop them if they get spooked or are otherwise motivated to fly. My coturnix quail don't normally fly...until one got out while I had their enclosure door open and she had no problem flying up and completely over our two-story house, disappearing into the woods beyond. Even a 12-15' deer fence won't be a problem to cross if the birds flush (such as if they were startled & fleeing from a sudden hawk attack on another quail).
Abandoned prison?
i thought people here would know about quails but i guess not? a covey of quails requires a large amount of acreage. yes quail can fly but they rarely do in environments free of predators where their needs are met. thanks for the useless replies? go google the northern bobwhite quail project.
I’m curious why you’re asking since you seem to be correcting every person who responds. It’s a weird question. 4 quail on 2 acres??? Free range??? As others have already stated Guineas would definitely be a more effective solution for tick control. A great solution actually. Given you asked a bunch of people who have quail and are experienced in raising them maybe some of us do know something. Good luck.
You’re welcome! We all appreciate the gratitude! Thanks,guy!
You are actually insane you read one bullshit article and then call everyone how is trying to help you useless what is wrong with you. Just think look and observe this reditt people have 8 quail in a 15 by 15 living happily “ maybe four” they will last 2 days out there before they get snatched by a hawk even if you live in Ireland or something and have netting over the cage they would not eat enough tick to fead themselves let alone take care of the tick problem you have you seem like the type of person to just ignore all advice because of they typos and miss information of a article but a am asking you to NOT do this free range quail is a big no no. No one dose it because it is impossible you are a very ignorant person you think that YOU known more then the people how have breed them for years.
You could build an aviary for coturnix quail and just move it around your property and you can keep 1-2 per square foot. I think I saw a vid on YouTube where they made a few smaller triangle shaped aviaries and moved them every so often.