Gun Dog Forum

I found a quail breeder close to me that sells in small amounts. I was gonna pick up about 10 or so for training. I was thinking of maybe using the 10 over a period of 2 weeks. I have a cage large enough to keep them in. Beside food and water is there any reason that this plan wont work?

I've found that if you keep quail in a SMALL cage (where they can't fly around) for much more than a week or 10 days, their flying ability decreases quite a bit. You might just want to buy what you'll use in a weeks time to have better flying birds for the dog---JMO

Wow, I didnt realize they lose that ability so quickly. Ok how much flight room do they need If I kept them longer?

I built a 15' W x 25'L x 15'H pen with waterers and feeders, built rodent proof, with shelf perches. Ended up costing aroun $400.

Tried Bob Whites and found that even in this pen their ability and willingness to fly diminished dramattically. I tried other types of Quail and found they all had the same problem except dor Valley Quail. These turned out to be very difficult to buy so I started trapping feral pigeons. These worked great and I was able to keep them for long period even in a much smaller pen and they always flew aggressively.

I could have saved hundreds perhaps a thousand if had just used pigeons in a small pen to start with.............

Also, if Bobwhites get wet they are easily caught by the dogs. Pigeons still fly even when wet.

The secret to keeping quail flying is to make them fly up and not how far. Put the feed and water up several feet off of the floor and they will maintain their flight ability pretty well. But I agree, pigeons are the way to go for most training.

Ezzy

Last year I had some quail in with my pigeons. 10 x 10 pen for a couple months. They flew really well when I finally used them.

ezzy, Great idea, make em fly for food and water.............I'm moving the water and feed up to shelf about 6 feet off the ground. I'll try some Bobs as soon as I can get some and try it out. I'm using pigeons but my hunting buds still want to use Bobs. So we'll mix them and see how it goes.

My dog lost interest in pigeons, so I am starting to raise some bobs. My flight pen will have a feed and water shelf that I can raise over time up to 6 ft high. Just learning, is 6 weeks old ok to move to the flight pen? Right now in a wire bottom cage kept in darkness.