G 
Facts About Quail Breeding 
Some little time before laying begins, 
the hen birds shape nesting hollows in 
the ground, often several. Let them 
get a good start laying before you 
gather the eggs. At the first nest 
robbing, leave one egg in the nests 
that are full. Don’t disturb the birds 
that have just begun to lay. We have 
gathered eggs at various intervals, 
but I think about every eight or ten 
days is a good rule, depending of course 
on how you are supplied with brooding 
bantams at the time. You want to 
hatch as many as you can early in the 
season, for then you will have strong 
and wild birds by the time the hard 
weather begins. 
In exceptional cases, quail lay a 
great many eggs, but there are always 
some pairs that do not lay at all. 
My best pen this year produced 45 
eggs, the next best 34. The average 
for the southern or southwestern 
stock was 15 eggs, and for the northern 
or New England stock, 11 eggs. I 
may add that a number of these pens 
were placed in bad situations where 
rank grass grew, that made too much 
shade and dampness. Besides this, my 
birds were broken up July 13, while 
still laying well. 
My average, therefore, is much too 
low, and should easily be improved 
upon. These estimates were based on 
24 pens. Two birds escaped during the 
laying season, and two died, so that 
there were only about 20 pens in full 
working order. The total produced 
was 350 eggs (a few eggs were gathered 
from some odd quail in a large run). 
From these eggs we were able to 
rear to maturity about 175 quail. 
Exact estimate is impossible because 
the birds when grown are too wild 
and scattered to count accurately. 
We also sold about 100 eggs at a 
good price, ranging from 75 cents to 
over a dollar each. 
I have now supposed that the quail 
breeder has on hand some good fresh 
quail eggs. The bantams are im¬ 
portant. We have used mostly small 
mongrel cochins, and various crosses 
with silky bantams. The nest should 
be carefully shaped out in a sod, and 
about 16 eggs placed under each hen. 
It would take too much space to 
follow all the details of this stage and 
of the hatching and rearing, so I wish 
to refer anyone who is especially 
interested to the very good routine 
account to be found in Job’s “Propa¬ 
gation of Wild Birds.’’ I will from 
now on dwell on my personal experi¬ 
ence, and touch on some points that 
seem to me important. 
When American breeders first began 
to rear quail they tried to confine them 
and handle them like pheasants in 
rearing yards. The little birds soon 
exhausted the insect food and de¬ 
veloped the dread quail disease, which 
when once started will often sweep off 
a whole brood in one day. No progress 
was made until the free range system 
was developed. This consists briefly of 
the following procedure: 
The hen is moved to the brooder 
coop as soon as the chicks are dry 
and strong, or as soon as the weather 
suits. The brooder coop is the same as 
that used for pheasants. Ours are 
22 inches square, with sides 14 inches 
high. The photo shows the front of 
the coop with sliding door admitting 
chicks, but not bantams. At first the 
young quail are only let out into the 
guard, which is three sided and fits 
on the front of the coop. It extends 
out three feet in front of the coop and 
is one foot high. The presence of this 
guard enables the chicks to become 
used to the hen and prevents them 
from getting lost before they know 
their quarters. 
Keeping them Healthy 
If the weather is good, the guard 
ought to come off in four or five days. 
At this time we take a roll of 18 inch 
cellar wire and set it up on end with 
stakes, forming a circular pen with the 
coop inside, The larger this is, the 
better, and the grass or clover of the 
rearing field, if too long, should have 
broad paths cut through it, so that the 
young birds may have plenty of sun 
when they want it. As soon as the 
guard is removed, let the hen slip 
out into the new wire yard and range 
as she pleases. She will go back into 
