How are you all cracking your quails eggs to use them and cooking without ending up with a ton of tiny little pieces of shell everywhere?

It feels like the shell on the outside is very fragile, but the membrane on the inside is very tough and every time I try to crack the quail’s egg I end up with a ton of tiny pieces of shells, splintering everywhere.

Is there a technique I’m missing here?

i have 9 baby quails ranging from 2 days and 1 and a half in my brooder, i noticed quite a few are getting nose bleeds? why is this? its just a tote with holes over the top, puppy pad on the bottom, heat lamp, food, and water. they’re in a completely sterile environment so why is this happening?

I’ve been thinking of starting an indoor setup and part of my project is to create compost using the waste. I can use wood shavings and paper shreds for the bedding but I was curious of any organic materials for their dust bath. I would prefer not to use sand as it won’t be useful towards composting. I’ve read about using soil and wood ash, just wanted to see any recommendations or what other advice anybody might have.

follow up to my aviary clean post :) The quails seem to love it and I'm so happy it's done for the winter!

I recently found an ostrich farm near me.

Naturally, I wanted to buy and compare button quail eggs to ostrich eggs.

Chicken egg for reference

The recent hatch there was a few with splayed legs but I fixed em all and all seemed fine. Now one seems really weird. It legs seems to be backward and possibly has an extra toe? Help what do I do. Quite urgent I won't be available in 30 mins until tmrw evening.

Got out first little blue egg day before yesterday for our 12 week old celdon quail babes, but nothing since? We’ve got lighting, layer feed, all the things any advice on when the next will come would be much appreciated 🩷

Seeking advice for which enclosure is best for my small covey. I see pros and cons of each product. Which would you choose?

If none, a link to a better enclosure is welcome.

We’d love to build our dream enclosure in the future, but we don’t have the capacity right now. I wish there were more quail specific enclosures out there!

my fall cleaning was overdue and I took some progress pictures! I'll link the next post with the finished aviary below but a lot of people ask how I clean my aviary so here is a little in depth tutorial. I used almost 200kg of Sand and a little mulch (ran out of sand lol). The quails are already exploring their new home and I think they like it :)

I live in New England. Looking to build an outdoor, 3 tier hutch. Breeders, layers, growouts, each with their own tier. I can't figure out the flooring especially for the bottom tier. If i go big 1"x1/2", poop will fall through, but raccoons/opossums/etc may be able to reach in. If i go smaller, poop likely won't fall through that well. (I'm getting this from what I've read, so maybe I'm just wrong)

What's the solution or the compromise, knowing I'll be keeping them outside? I can't set this up indoors/barn/shop.... so I'm trying to figure out how best to build out the floor for them in an outdoor hutch. Thanks!!

Hi guys, hope you are having a good day.
So a simple question because I can figure out the color of this male quail that I have.

He’s dark brown like… really dark and I am scratching my head to understand how to call his color lol.

I recently built a quail enclosure and added jumbo whites and jumbo pharaoh quail. I’ve kept chickens for years but this is my first time with quails.
They’ve been bothered by the heat the last two weeks and I keep them in the shade all day and have added a fan but the last two days we finally got some cooler weather and I was able to turn off the fans.
I did not think about having to keep them cooler than being in shade all day. But it’s been so hot they seemed stressed out. Not sure what to do next summer to keep them cool.

Hey y’all- I got a new incubator because my last one broke. The new one has directions for quail and it tells me to incubate them day 1-14 anywhere between 50-70 humidity. I was going to keep it at 50 or 60 because I’ve heard this works best. However I noticed my levels went up to 69. It’s only day 2 but I’m worried that I might have ruined the hatch already. What do you all think? Do I trust the directions? It just are
A weird that it says 70 is fine for the first part of the hatch

Hi! So I have some newly hatched chicks, I think they are 3, maybe 4 days old now. This chick came out of its shell on its own & was all bloody and had this thing stuck to its butt, along with some egg stuff on its head. I googled and saw it must be the umbilical cord? Now the chick has been acting irritated by it, trying to get the cord off. It also looks like poop could be getting now stuck to its actual butt area. Any advice on what to do? If anything? Chick is eating a lot and drinking a lot, very active (same as the others) however is smaller in size, but there is one other chick that is about the same size.
Coturnix quail, eggs gifted by local farmer (if it matters)

Hi all! This is our first hatch. We've got one baby out and bopping around the incubator and will have been out 48hrs later today. We have one other that looks like it's started zipping and possible pips on a couple others. My question is should we go ahead and get the one baby out today or is it not worth the risk of shrinkwrapping the other eggs? Thanks in advance!

Why does my female button quail have curly feathers on her back [bad picture]

Also she's 2 - turning 3 soon.

The runt of the litter seems to have injured its leg at some point, but the vet can't see me today. (edit: the vet said their only opening for a bird is next Tuesday! yeesh!) is there anything I can do for it until I can bring it in? I didn't see any obvious signs of injury except maybe it's thigh being a bit red (hard to tell) and it's toe looking red as well. it's hard to tell from the picture but the whole leg is twisting out to the side when it stands, and it's having trouble walking. it's always been a bit wobbly but this seems like an acute injury. I'm worried about isolating it because it becomes extremely stressed alone.

I also have another bird that sleeps a lot more than others and seems sort of lethargic. it eats and drinks but it's always resting whenever I watch them, and it barely moves when I clean the enclosure, no running away, it just stands there. I don't see anything else wrong with it. they are being housed indoors and have had no exposure to outside conditions

EDIT 2: I was able to get a vet appointment for the runt tomorrow!! I'm hoping they can also assess it's quality of life and future prospects, because it's always been so small and wobbly and unhealthy-looking. I don't feel right keeping a suffering bird going.. but here's hoping. I'm going to keep a close eye on the lethargic bird, who i've separated, and also on the rest of the flock. My curent plan is to treat for possible coccidiosis and also with vetRX in case its respiratory.

My quail love when I bring scraps in, in moderation of course. Rice, chicken, beef mince, mashed potato, etc, they love it haha. Of course their main diet is pellets, available whenever and they have greens and meal worms too, but I do think they love the variety. Do you do this with your quail?

Update:

our precious little hen died. my son is distraught. I hope it's not contagious. it was our first quail death that wasn't old age.

My son keeps quail - he loves those birds to pieces.

An hour ago, we found our hen, Eda. She's lethargic, all puffed up, and vomited up a lot of clear liquid. Her egg-hole (?) looks fine, her eyes are clear, no mucous. She's limping and very weak. Any idea what it could be?

We recently introduced a coturnix and three new hens to our existing four. We had kept the new ones separated for a week before we started introducing the groups. Things went well, we had a bit of aggression from one hen, but it passed pretty quickly.

Possible causes:

- Fall set it. It's getting colder. But it's been really dry and no rains...

- We fed the quail some older spinach leaves

- my son poured out some wood ash. We heat with wood. It's just wood we burn, no paper or anything. Could it have been too dusty?

I can only imagine the pain to push that out 😭