A book about quail

I'm making a book about quail in permaculture, and I'd love your input! I'm writing it in Polish, but I may consider translating to English and making some "print on demand" kind of thing (but I've never done that). It will be a guide about raising them, in a permaculture context, and my idea is to print a small number of copies to make a handmade limited edition, and then see if anyone is interested in publishing it on a larger scale.
One thing somewhat unusual about it, is that I want all illustrations to be my original watercolours/drawings.
I'd love to credit everyone who contributes, and I can also make a list of farms, homesteads, etc, that raise quail.
I'm looking for any tips about feeding, management, aviary or cage design, recipes, or anything you'd like to add!
Attached a picture of one bird as a chick and as an adult - I'd love to name all the colour varieties too, but I think there are too many, and some genetic varieties are unnamed...

What a fantastic project!

I wish I could be of more help, but I am not a quail keeper. I am simply curious about quail.

I'll be keeping tabs as this progresses.

Thanks! Most of it is my "notes to self" anyway :) and I still can't find motivation to make art, but illustrating something like this feels neutral enough that it's actually interesting to me. I'll also do the layout.

I only have three months of experience with quail, and so far I think they're perfect for urban homesteads - quiet and almost invisible in the garden; and great for people who aren't physically strong (like me).

I have been keeping quail only for about a year now, if that. I have definitely learned a lot. I started out working very hard on a large quail kingdom that ended up way too big and is going to end up being where the firewood lives probably. I am still using my temporary cages which were gerbil cages or something from PetsMart or some pet store. Something like 4 x 2 x 1 foot or so high. It works perfect and I have two of them so it makes cleaning the cage really easy right now because I only have 3 quail, 1 male and two females. Yes this is not ideal, but when I ordered them I was supposed to get 12 I believe and because of a delay in shipping and the weather (I live in Tucson, AZ) I got a shipment half full of dead birds and half very weak birds. One more died that night, and since then I have lost two more for ... different reasons. So here I am with 3 birds and I am waiting another few weeks as the weather is cooling off before they are willing to ship them to me. I am getting 6 celadon quail which are the same as my jumbos, same species, and so I am told they should be ok in the same cage. I am going to give the male two more females to reduce the mating pressure and then have the second cage with 4 females.

Feel free to contact me with any questions I'm happy to contribute. I have some pretty good stories I haven't shared here.

--Nichollas greeningtucson@sonoran.art

Hi Nicholas! Living in the Sonora desert must be a magical experience. When I was in Mexico I watched a movie titled "The Devil's Highway" (2018), about people who are forced to travel across Sonora desert. But we travelled to other states so I didn't get anywhere near, to see it in real life.
If you're keeping quail in that climate, I guess the heat might be the biggest challenge. You can create shaded cooler spots for them to cool down. They like to dig a hole under a little hutch like this one in the picture. It can have moist sand or soil inside and be shaded during the hot days, or have a lot of hay and straw under and over it, to keep them warm in winter. Their feet aren't as strong as chicken feet so I help them to rearrange the bedding every morning. Those gloves with claws are a perfect tool for that, in my opinion.
Shipping baby quails is also dangerous to them, and then there is stress in the new place... if you have a male and two females, I would collect hatching eggs from them and raise my own. There are incubators for just 20-30 eggs if you don't need to hatch more. They grow very fast and are super cute to watch. They will have a chance to get used to you and your environment from day one, and no shipping means much less stressful sitiuations.

I've been raising quail and have encountered numerous problems which I have overcome for the most part, and I would be happy to contribute!

contact@pupfishco.com

--Nichollas

P.S. I see that I already responded to this message! Well I have a lot more experience now. I spent almost 5 hours building them a "free range" or "pasture" or whatever they are called, quail. Like a tractor. As it does get above 110 we have had them in the house for quite a while but after seeing how much they love being on the natural ground I am working on a way to keep them cool. Any suggestions?

P.P.S.    LOL      

Oh yes, the Sonoran Desert is quite magical, but really (as permaculture teaches us) the magic is between borders. The borders I am referring to are those between biomes.

The drive from Tucson up to the summit of Mount Lemmon is a classic sky island gradient—you pass through multiple distinct biomes over a relatively short horizontal distance due to rapid elevation gain (~2,500 ft → ~9,150 ft).

Summary (clean gradient)
Elevation Biome
2,300–3,500 ft Sonoran Desert
3,500–4,500 ft Desert Grassland
4,500–6,000 ft Oak Woodland
6,000–7,500 ft Pine-Oak Forest
7,500–8,500 ft Ponderosa Pine Forest
8,500–9,150 ft Mixed Conifer Forest

This is effectively a compressed latitude shift:

Tucson ≈ northern Mexico desert
Mt. Lemmon summit ≈ southern Canada climate analog

You’re traversing the ecological equivalent of ~1,000+ miles northward in about an hour of driving. =) Myco, flora and fauna diversity galore.

We have been raising coturnix quail since 2018.   We have to have a license to have other types of quail here in the US.  We have never got one coturnix to sit on eggs.  We use an incubator to hatch all of ours. They lay lots of eggs from about 8 weeks old until about 6 months old.  They lay more eggs if they have good lighting. They don't lay well below 32 deg. F.  We use five males to one female ratio for best breeding.  Ours grow and produce well off of 16 percent layer mash made at our local mill.  They seem to be extremely healthy and disease resistant.  They are easily killed by small critters.  If they can stick their head out of a pen, they will let a cat chew it off.  They can live in small spaces. They need extra protection at all times because they are tiny and fragile.  They are pleasant to listen to.  Their breast meat is delicious if wrapped in bacon and grilled.  Overall, they have been a joy to raise.

Nicholas and Christopher,
thank you for bringing this up again! I have to admit that I abandoned the work on this, mostly because I wasn't sure about the style. But I have all the information so it would be really useful to produce it. I was also thinking of something more like a "quail owner's notebook", with some practical information but also space for one's own notes.