Making a quail brooder

When breeding poultry, brooders are often used – special boxes for keeping young animals. They are used in breeding avian young during the first days after birth. And quail here are no exception. For this reason, a quail brooder is a very useful thing on the farm, provided that the farmer breeds these birds. At the same time, it is not difficult to make a brooder for quails with your own hands.But the one who will make it must follow certain assembly rules.

Table of Contents
  1. What is required from a brooder for quail young
  2. Design and feeding questions
  3. Build a quail brooder
  4. Quail brooder frame
  5. Walls and cover for the brooder
  6. Lighting and heating the brooder
  7. Lighting the brooder
  8. How to ensure feeding of young animals in the brooder
  9. Conclusion <

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Quail brooder

What is required of a broiler for quail young

When making a homemade brooder for quail, you must first take into account the dimensions of the structure. For example, for one hundred day old chicks, boxes whose area is 0.5 square meters are enough. m. But when he turns half a month, you need twice as much space. And with the same dimensions of a homemade quail brooder, only 50 kids will fit in it. The rest will have to be transplanted into another similar room. For this reason, some farmers make 2-3 spare cages for young animals.

There are a couple more points that should be considered when assembling a brooder for small quails with their own hands. Firstly, the house in which the kids will live should be kept clean, without this, no care will help. In each box, you need to make a grid floor and a tray for cleaning garbage and litter from the cage. Some neglect this design detail, believing that it would not be difficult for the farmer himself to remove excess dirt. But experienced poultry farmers do not recommend saving in such matters regarding maintenance.

The second question that you should definitely think about is ventilation and space heating. And here we must first find out whether the quail will feel comfortable at a certain level at a temperature in the brooder. And this is by no means an idle question: kids of different ages need different temperatures and heating levels. You can find out to what level to heat the air in the room from the suggested videos. Equally important is proper ventilation in the brooder. If fresh air doesn’t enter it, the chicks will choke very quickly.

Questions on design and feeding

And the first question that should be addressed is what a quail brooder will be made. Some remodel a wooden box or cardboard box for these purposes. The manufacture of plastic or wooden dwellings for young animals is also acceptable.But the steel structure for growing chicks is definitely not suitable, since it will not maintain the desired temperature. Of course, after choosing the material, you need to prepare drawings and determine the dimensions of the future quail house.

If we talk about drinking bowls and feeders, then there are several different options. Firstly, they can be bought ready-made. But the price may be too high in the opinion of many farmers. Secondly, it is permissible to use ordinary bowls or saucers as drinkers and feeders. But they often have to change food and drink, as the quail constantly strives to climb there with their feet. Well, the third option is to make the necessary equipment with your own hands. Fortunately, this is not so difficult.

Build a quail brooder

The quail brooder is not too complicated and even someone with little experience can assemble it in a similar job. You can watch certain videos that explain the whole process in detail. Here you need to understand all the main details, since you will have to make a broiler for quail yourself. First you need to understand the basic structural elements, and then step through the entire assembly process, then you can simplify the procedure and make it more understandable.

The first thing that is made is the frame on which you will install walls, doors and floor. Following the frame, the floor is prepared and installed.It consists of two segments: fine mesh and a litter collection tray, then the walls and the cover are screwed, after which the doors are already installed. But the doors must first be assembled and prepared for installation. Following are mounted lighting and heating systems. At the very end, feeders and drinking bowls are installed inside, without which you cannot run the chicks into the brooder.

Bruder for quails do it yourself. Bruder for quail own hands.
Chicken brooder and quail. The infrared film and thermostat W1209,
Farm Craft Quail Brooder.Video review launch

Frame for quail brooder

First you need to assemble the frame, on which all other structural elements will already be fixed. It is usually made of durable bars or battens that can support the weight of all other elements. If you make a house for 50 chicks, then each plank is made into a length of 50 or 60 cm. Then the room turns into a cubic shape. But in the event that it is planned to keep the kids in the brooder for longer than 7-10 days, a brooder of twice the size will be required. The number of rails required for the frame can be calculated at the beginning.

So, in any situation, four vertical rails, 55-60 cm high, will be required. Their thickness should be 20-30 mm. The thickness of all other frame elements must be exactly the same. Then four horizontal slats 50 cm long will be required. They will fasten the vertical racks. And finally, we need 6 more boards from 0.5 to 1 m long, depending on the size of the room: 2 boards are installed in the upper part for mounting the cover. And 4 are needed at the bottom, a pair on each side, one above the other.

4 boards are installed at the bottom so that a pallet can be installed between them. On each side, 2 boards are placed one above the other, a small gap of 2-3 cm is left between them. The whole structure is fastened with screws or self-tapping screws. It is undesirable to use nails or glue, since they are not so convenient in this case.If it is not clear from the description how to assemble the brooder, then it’s worth watching the video available in the application. It will explain the main points of manufacture.

Walls and cover for the brooder

First, the farmer needs to decide what can be used as the walls of a home-made quail house. It should be assumed that the walls of the room will be made of wood. This means that plywood, thin boards, fiberboard or chipboard will be used, although the last 2 materials are not very good in this situation, but you can resort to none, in the absence of other alternatives. Walls should be assembled so that there are no holes, crevices or other paths for drafts, because colds are very dangerous for chicks.

It is best to make walls from solid sheets of plywood, measuring the right part so that they completely cover the right territory, then they are usually screwed using the same screws. It is necessary to screw tightly so that the room comes out warm enough and comfortable for maintenance. But even before the walls are installed, a floor net must be installed. A fine-mesh net is selected in which the feet of the babies will not get stuck, otherwise injuries will become a real scourge of the poultry breeder.

After installing the floor and walls, a series of doors comes in. And some farmers prefer not to do them on the side, but on top of the product. In some cases, they do without doors at all, leaving a large opening on top.If the doors are made, then they will require several pieces of boards or 2 sheets of plywood. Some kind of frame is made of them, onto which the same fine-mesh mesh is fixed. Ready-made sashes are attached to the frame using steel hinges, which can be easily purchased at any hardware store.

Lighting and heating the brooder

Illumination and temperature in the brooder for quail in most cases supported by infrared lamps. An infrared lamp can belong to one of two varieties. The first type of lamp emits a red glow. It warms up better, but it is not suitable as a light source, since birds do not see in this range of the spectrum. The lamp of the second type is called a white lamp and can simultaneously serve both for heating and for lighting. You can easily combine these 2 types of fixtures.

If the farmer uses red lamps for heating, he will have to install an additional lamp for lighting. And at the same time, you must ensure that it does not raise the temperature above the required level. Excessive room heating to a large extent harms the chicks and is very undesirable. There is a certain temperature regime, which is recommended for quailing any breed. Room heating should be maintained at the following level:

  • Chicks are kept at a temperature of 35 to 38 ° C until the age of one week. Usually they are kept near a heat source.
  • At the age of 1 to 2 weeks, babies need a temperature of 30-33 ° C. Moreover, it should be lowered gradually.
  • Up to 3 weeks, the chicks are already kept at a temperature of 25-28 degrees.
  • Starting from a month of age, young birds need only 20-23 degrees for normal life .

The cultivation of small quails in a brooder should take place at precisely such temperatures. Knowing what temperature babies need, you can adjust it at your discretion. For automatic adjustment, you can purchase a special device, and if you have the necessary skills, you can do it yourself. But the manufacture of such a relay will require, in addition to skills, certain photos and drawings. It is worth noting that it is recommended to use red lamps for heating, since then the chicks grow faster.

Bruder lighting

We should also consider lighting in the place where the chicks are kept. Making a brooder for small quails with your own hands, you need to make or order a lighting system for it. The thing is that these birds are very sensitive to daylight hours. For example, small males, with a sharp reduction in daylight hours, can lose the ability to reproduce. Therefore, the lighting system is usually thought out along with the heating system. But it is quite realistic to make it to the farmer himself.

As in the case of heating, here it will be necessary to decide how many pieces of lamps will need to be installed during the assembly process. Here you need to understand that the average level of illumination for quail should be 20-80 lux. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to independently calculate the desired level of illumination. Farmers recommend using conventional calculators for these purposes. Theoretically, an incandescent lamp with a power of 5-10 W is enough to illuminate the brooder, but more is not required. Here’s what they write about the highlighting on the forums:

“The lighting system for the“ quail ”is easy to install. There are even proposals in the style of “give the lamp”, but they must still be able to correctly adjust. If you leave constant illumination, then the chicks will not only grow faster, but also will be depleted, and if you shorten daylight hours, then their fertility will decrease in the future. One of the recommended options is 2 hours of light, 1 hour of darkness. If the chicks get used to this mode, they will grow up normally, and the lamps will not burn out ahead of time. ” the steps have been completed – the room has been assembled, lighting and heating have already been installed in it. Now you need to mark the feeder for the kids, as well as put a suitable drinking bowl inside. At first glance, this is the simplest task. The easiest way is to put 2 dishes: one for food, and the second for drinking, but their chicks can turn over very quickly.Moreover, the same chicks are able to spoil both food and water. They will get into the dishes utterly and relieve themselves there. And that’s all, food needs to be changed, because the remaining food is no longer suitable for further consumption.

That is why many farmers separately make a feeder for their brooder. And in the same way, home-made drinking devices are used. A simple option is to take a plastic or metal can and make a series of holes in it, into which the chick’s beak will crawl. And in the center – a large connector under the neck of a plastic bottle. For feed, the bottom of the bottle is cut off and the nutrient mixture is poured inside. For a drinking bowl, the bottle is first collected and then installed without cutting the bottom.

Conclusion

Of course, making a quail brooder is not an easy task, although it does not require special skills, you have to tinker with build quality and adjusting the backlight and heating. But with a responsible approach, the assembled room will serve and bring profit to its owner for a long time.

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Anna Evans

Author ✓ Farmer

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