Are you wondering how to raise chicken and quails together? Is it even possible to raise the two birds together? Besides quails and chickens, you can always raise different poultry birds on your farm. However, it would be best if you did it correctly to achieve the results you are looking for. This post will primarily focus on how to raise quails and chickens together.
So, back to your question, “Can I keep quail and chicken together?” The answer is NO. If you want to raise both birds, you have to separate them. Keeping quails and chicken under one roof may seem like a good idea, but it’s not.
Chicken, especially roosters, tend to bully quails and may injure or kill some of the birds. You will also lose quail eggs since chickens peck and eat them. Once they start this egg-eating habit, they will eventually eat their eggs, causing you to incur losses.
You should also understand that birds contract diseases. Quails may be unable to withstand diseases contracted from chickens, leading to death. Additionally, it is hectic to feed the birds since quails and chickens have different feed requirements.
You should consider raising quails and birds separately with the above in mind. Raising poultry like ducks and chicken together is much easier than quals with any of them because quails are tiny and delicate.
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Do chickens eat quails and their eggs?
Though both chickens and quails have a high pecking order, chickens are superior due to their body size. While quails have an average weight of 96 grams, adult chickens may weigh between 2-4.5 kg. Therefore, when raised together, the chickens dominate the quails.
The hens may peck and injure the small-bodied birds, leading to death. Additionally, your quails may be unable to feed or have access to water as hens may step and peck them to keep them away from the feeding area. The hens may also eat the injured quails since they feed on meat.
Chicken pecking order and curiosity of chickens will also drive them to eat the quail’s eggs. Once the quails lay their eggs, hens peck, break, and eat the eggs. Once the hens have tasted the eggs, they will continue feeding on them as soon as the quails lay them. This urge will also drive the hens to eat their eggs, leading to huge losses.
Therefore, putting the two poultry birds under one coop isn’t advisable since chickens will attack and eat quails and their eggs.
Can quails contract diseases from chickens?
Quails can pass diseases to chickens and vice versa. For instance, if your quails suffer from Ulcerative Enteritis (deadly quail disease), they may pass the infection to chickens. The condition is transferred by:
- Chicken coming into contact with droppings from infected quails.
- Flies that had bitten infected quails
If the birds live together, it is impossible to prevent the chicken from coming into contact with infected birds or their droppings. Thus, the infection rate increases. On the other hand, Coryza, which mainly affects chicken, can pass to your quails.
Chickens have a robust immune system that can withstand many diseases like Coryza. However, Coryza can wipe out an entire flock of quails in a few days.
Can quails free range with chicken?
Chicken cannot free-range with quails due to the following reasons:
1. Quails may fly away
Since quails are wild species, they fly better than chickens. A quail can fly up to 50 meters without stopping. After flying away, predators may eat them or lose their way and never return.
2. Different housing needs
Unlike chickens, quails are commonly attacked by rodents and snakes, which feed on them. Therefore, they require housing fenced with small-holed mesh wire, unlike chicken coops with chicken wire. If you free-range the two poultry birds in a chicken housing, you will lose your quails to predators.
3. Different feed requirements
While adult quails only require about 15g of food with 18-20% protein content daily, chicken needs more food with 14-16% protein serving. When free-ranging, chicken may eat the quail food, thus starving them. More so, the high protein intake may be unhealthy for your chicken.
Can chicken sit on quail eggs?
Quails are good layers but hardly brood and sit on their eggs. If you have no incubator and you want to hatch the quail eggs, you can use your brooding hen to hatch the eggs. However, the shells of quail eggs are thinner and softer than chicken eggs, and the hen may crack them with their weight or legs.
Even with the risk of breakage, you can let chicken hatch quail eggs by doing the following:
- Wait for a laying hen to become broody
- Place eggs for the hen to sit on (if it usually sits on ten eggs, put 7 or 8)
- Slip several quail eggs under the hen at night and mark the day.
- Once hatched, take the quails away from the hen
How close can quails be to chicken?
You can put quails as close as you may want to chicken as far as you don’t put them under one cage due to various reasons we’ve already discussed. You should separate the chicken coop from the quail housing to avoid intermingling.
The chicken coop will have a different structure than that of quails. For instance, quails mainly dwell on the ground, so the house should be close to ground level. However, ensure that you construct some footers of about 5-6 inches to prevent predators from climbing the run and attacking the quails.
On the other side, chicken housing can be above the ground with a hanging staircase. Since quails can fly up high, the quail run should be covered with a soft material to prevent them from injuring themselves while trying to fly away.
Final verdict
If you have been wondering if chickens and quails can live together, this article has enlightened you on how to raise the two poultry birds together. More so, it explains why it isn’t a good idea to put quails and chickens under one house unit.
If you’ve been wondering how to raise quails and chickens together, use this post as your guide. More so, share this post since sharing is caring.
