Building the Coop#

This last summer I decided I wanted to raise quail in the back yard. I think YouTube algorithm started showing me a bunch of homestead videos about raising quail. They looked easy to raise and gave you eggs that you could eat or sell. So I decided to give it ago. I also used it as opportunity to learn how to build a quail hutch by hand.

I followed a YouTube tutorial by the Slightly Redneck channel. The design was simple to build. Just required some firring strips, hardware cloth, and some cheap plywood to build. I bought a Skill Saw and all the supplies from Lowes

Took me quite a few weekends over the summer, mostly because this is the first time I was building something like this and using all the tools. I learned a lot about actually building things. Overall I’m happy with how it turned out. I learned where you should put your extra focus to make sure things are square and line up. Like the doors. It’s really important that you make everything square so that it lines up when you close the doors.

Here’s a picture of the final build hutch. quail hutch

We bought 36 Egyptian Jumbo Coturnix quail hatching eggs from https://www.juddsquail.com/

Due to the inexpensive incubator we used, only one chick hatched shown below. After the fact we learned that incobating quail eggs is more difficult than chicken eggs since they have tigher temperature and humidity tolerances. We didn’t want the quail to be alone since they are social animals. I ended up finding someone on Craigslist selling some Coturnix quail and ended up with 12 all together. quail_chick

Here’s a picture of the quail in the hutch once they’ve gotten old enough to stay outside instead of the garage where it was warmer. quail hutch with quail

Overall Experience#

It’s fun having Quail. They are super cute looking. I love how rotund and round they are. They are pretty skittish by nature and don’t really enjoy being held. Although I still do it sometimes because they are cute and make the funniest face when they are protesting you holding them. They have a light on a timer so that they produce eggs throughout the year since they required ~14 hours of light per day, which only happen in the summer in Washington.

We have some male and female quail so we may consider trying to incubate some of their fertilized eggs to have more quail in the future. They only live ~2-3 years so we’ll need to figure out how to get more. They hatching eggs and chicks are relativly expensive so hatching our own would be a good option.

Conclusion#

They are fun pets to have and provide us with eggs to eat. They are fun to watch run around and play in their hutch. It was also a great learning experience for me to learn how to use tools to build something with my hands. As a software engineer it’s almost expected that i’d like to try my hand at carpentry to actually build something physical.