Editor's Note: Doctor Hayes offers much knowledge to our readers concerning various poultry topics. This page is a collection of some of his Questions and Answers, as seen in his popular gamebird ezine. We'd like to thank Doctor Hayes for contributing so much to the poultry world.

This page is updated periodically with additional Questions and Answers concerning raisnig quail.

Index to Questions:
Bobwhite Quail
Finding Quail Breeds
Incubating Quail, and Hatching Humidity
Raising Quail in the City
Feeding Quail
Hatching Bobwhite Quail Chicks
More About Hatching Bobwhite Quail Chicks

QUESTION: I raised several species of quail when I was in high school and college and have been thinking about getting back into it again. A lot of time has passed since those enjoyable days (I'm 51 now) and I'd like to try some of the species I did not keep, i.e., Masked Bobwhite, Mearns & Elegant Quail.

My question, and I'm hoping you can shed some light on this is, what does one need re. permits for Masked Bobwhites. I recall something you wrote about them many years ago but lately I hear and read conflicting assessments of what is required. I know of two breeders who have them; one says I need a FWS permit the other said he was told he should just not say he has them but rather refer to them as Bobwhite mixes.

Any light you can shed on this will be very much appreciated.

ANSWER: I guess it is true— when the "quail Virus" attacks we are hooked for life! Welcome back to many enjoyable days with your birds.

Technically, one does need a U.S. permit to sell Masked Bobwhites and move them across State lines. However, they can be given away and transported to any of the States. That was the law when I had them. It could have been changed since then. I got a Federal permit when I had these birds and it said anyone that bought birds from me had to also have a permit. You should check with the authorities and get a copy of the law as it stands today. I cannot say how many breeders that have these quail do so legally. I would never suggest or recommend that one breaks the law. (Regardless of how silly it may be.)

I found that the Masked Bobwhites are really not that challenging. I was one of the first ones to get government birds from Patuxant and had pure birds from the wild. They were overstocked with birds and were beginning a release program in Southern Arizona as they were so successful in raising them. I raised over 400 birds that first year. The selling price back then was $100 per bird.

Mearns quail are much more challenging. They are hard to find and are costly when you can find them. They are difficult unless one knows their peculiarities. I recommend that you get my book, Upland Game Birds, their Breeding and Care which has some good information on the Masked Bobs and the Mearns.

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QUESTION:I'm a bird breeder almost for 25 years, some years ago I moved to United States ( SO CAL).

I have your book Upland Game Birds, no doubt the best and more informative book to anyone seriously interested in breed some of the awesome quails and another birds that you mention in it.

Today I read your ezine and I find some interesting but truth about importing birds to USA. First because I have a friend of mine who has possibilities to send me some birds from Brazil, that I think never before arrived to USA: one or two species of Genera Odontophorus and maybe some species of Tinamidae and Cracidae, everything was captive born.

Actually I have some Button Quails and Bobwhites mutations, I like to try to breed a lot of Quails species, but is very hard to find some birds because I try to ask by Internet, but is very difficult.

Please let me know where I can find : Mearns, Mountain, Douglas Benson, Crested and the awesome Roul Roul partridge.

About the birds available from Brazil, do you think some people may have interest in import some birds like a" pool" of breeders?.

ANSWER: You live in a good climate to have the birds that you are interested in. With your experience, you should not have any trouble breeding them if only you could get breeders that are not related.

I understand that Brazil has a restriction on exports of their natural wildlife and control it. However, if one knows the right people, perhaps a permit could be had. Even if you could get a permit from Brazil— you would need to quarantine the birds in one of the US Quarantine Station for 30 to 45 days. This is very expensive and many birds could be lost. Usually, it is not economical to do this privately unless one is willing to loose their investment. There are some importers that occasionally have birds for sale they have imported.

Quail breeders would do anything nearly for some breeders in the Odontophorus family (Wood quail). The Cracidae and Tinamidae can be found in some collections. (Curassow- Tinamou).

You should join the APWS (American Pheasant and Waterfowl Society) and you will get their monthly magazine which has lots of ads from breeders of the birds that you are interested in. You can eMail them at: lloydbevbirds@tznet.com For more information. Tell them I sent you!

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QUESTION:I need a plain and simple answer. I have the Radio Shack temp and humidity gages, what % should they read for incubation and what % for hatching? I am hatching bob whites and valleys.

I have your wonderful book and my only complaint is the binding is coming un-done from excessive use.

ANSWER: Well I will have no trouble giving you the answer you want— I am told that I am plain and simple.

Your Radio Shack instruments gives the temperature and humidity in "percentages" and not "wet bulb temperatures". All you have to do is go to page 45 in my book and look at the chart and find (for example) the wet bulb reading at 100 degrees at 83.3 degrees. Look in the left hand column and you can see that this translates to 50% relative humidity.

I always run my incubators at 83-84 percent wet bulb which is about 50% relative humidity. Now, all books recommend that the humidity be raised 3 days or so before hatching begins. If you have a separate hatcher this works alright. If you have chicks hatching in the same compartment as eggs are still developing, this can be a problem. In the separate hatcher you can raise the humidity up to 90% relative humidity. However, running it this wet makes the chicks dry off slower. I raised the humidity only when using a separate hatcher.

Well, I can't let you use a "worn-out binding coming off" copy of my book. If you will send it back to me I will send you another as the binding should not come off. Merry Christmas!

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QUESTION:I have your book and have enjoyed reading it, but have not yet implemented anything. In your discussion about Quail I would like to hear about the issues of raising Quail in an Suburban environment. I think the key issues are the small scale of the enclosure, quality of life (for the Quail), cats and raccoons, keeping the Quail from spooking every time someone walks by yet being able to observe and enjoy the Quail...... When I was in the Southern Ca. desert some time a go there were Quail that had the strangest call. I think they were Valley Quail. Will they make that call in captivity?

Thanks for your work. I look forward to your e-mails.

ANSWER:The suburban items that you mentioned are just the reason that quail make a wonderful bird to keep in your backyard. Some of the problems that you mentioned must be taken care of but quail can be very happy in such an environment.

Rather than get into the specifics here (some of them will be answered in later discussions) I would simply tell you and others to use your common sense when facing these problems. The quail breeder out in the "boonies" has exactly the same problems to deal with. Quail can be kept in small pens, there are predators everywhere and the breeder needs to be able to see the quail and enjoy them.

The quail you mentioned in Southern California were probably the Valley Quail. They have a call very similar to the Gambel's (both are desert quail). Yes, you can separate them where they cannot see each other and they will give their calls back and forth. I believe they have a language all of their own and in this condition talk constantly.

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QUESTION:I have 4 species of quail (valley, gambels, blue scale and mountain). I feed the adults a turkey poult crumbles, but find they really like chicken scratch which is lower in protein. What do you recommend as far as protein percentage is concerned?

ANSWER:All of these species of quail need high protein feed. I would recommend around 28-29 percent Gamebird or Turkey feed. Yes, they love the hen scratch. I feed it to my birds as treats they come right up to me for it and it gives me a chance to look them over. A real treat would be to feed them a few meal worms. They go crazy for these and they are high protein. If you have the time, raise some mealies. I give instructions on how to do this in my book, Upland Game Birds, their Breeding and Care.

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QUESTION:"How to successfully raise Valley Quail, from egg to adulthood".
This would be concerning everything from incubation (ie. temperature/humidity), brooding (ratio of chicks at particular ages vs. sq. ft.), to ratio of birds per pen and foods that are best for them. And yes I do have a copy of your book. However, I experience fairly high mortality in the chicks stage. They are on pine shavings, heat lamps, Purina Gamebird Startena, Vita Start, and are in a brooding room that is within a brand new draft free building. So maybe I am not doing something correctly, and I am curious as to what that might be.
You said to ask per your memo below about "Quail Questions", so here, I have asked!

ANSWER:This is very odd as these quail are some of the more easy to raise. I would do the following:

1. Check the heat.
2. See if they are eating the pine shavings instead of the feed. They can get impacted crops and die.
Everything else you mention sounds alright.

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QUESTION:I got some quail questions for you. I have experienced hatching before, with guineafowl, pheasants & chickens. Recently I ordered some bobwhite quail eggs. When they arrived they were very dry to the touch and I started spritzing immediately. Now during hatch I would find 2 or 3 daily cracking and oozing what looked like dried blood.(I have herd about rotten eggs before but nothing described like this.) I could smell a musky smell (not rotten musky) when they would crack, long before I saw the problem. I would remove these eggs once I noticed the crack. But this happened up to day of hatch..out of 120 eggs I ended up with a hatch of approx. 50. Now that is not the only problem I ran into.
Many eggs would pip and then not hatch. Now I've run into this and know there is no real explanation..but what I did start seeing was a lot of pipping of the shell, all the way around, yet not one hole in the membrane! I am aware of two membrane in an egg. The one around the chick holding fluids in, and the one attached to the egg, which is much thicker. Now I did help a few out of the membrane when it was taking too long. There were eggs that I could pull the whole chick in membrane (after pip) out of the shell. it would still look like the egg shape, but all membrane and wiggling chick. I would help some out of the membrane, but not all ends well so I don't like to do that! Now I was running into another problem as well. Towards the end they would pip and then the membrane were drying suffocating the chick within. You would look at the newly pipped and 10 minutes later they were dead and the membrane had shrunk.
Now peoples first reaction is humidity, that was not a problem during incubation it was normal and during hatch I did increase it by adding an additional sponge soaked in warm water. When I had 6 or more chicks hatch I would trade sponge with new one and spritz..liberally. (little giant Styrofoam bator, fan).
I had to remove the chicks, waiting for six at least, because the other shells were so brittle they would crack other eggs while running about! I have experienced many things but this was the weirdest and lowest hatch I ever had and I have hatched many hundreds of chicks in my short 4 yr experience (I started small, you know how the hobby grows)!
Do you have a clue why this would happen. The membrane separating from egg like that or shrinking up so quickly. Would it be connected to the cracked oozing eggs? Was there a disease ,or could the hens they came from be new to laying somehow causing a problem???? I am just curious as to why this happened. As I said temp and humidity were steady and fine whole time, never did I let it dry out nor did I let the heat waver! What could have caused such a problem? Now I am also running into a loss of at least a chick a day. I have a brower brooder with a mesh flooring in there, heat is good, food and water are freely available, they seem fine and happy and yet daily I'm finding a dead chick. Is this normal after hatch it's been a week now and from 50 I'm down to 35ish. If it was the feed I would think I would find more then one dead daily, and they drink plenty of water....?????? I know shipped eggs don't give you perfect hatches but the problems don't seem to strike me as a shipping problem?? I'm stumped, is any of this normal???

ANSWER:You are having more than your share of problems with this hatch.

It sounds to me that the eggs got cracked during shipment and bacteria got into the eggs and killed the embryo.

I am grabbed with the question of humidity. You said the humidity was normal just what is normal to you? The humidity for Bobwhites should be around 83-4 degrees wet-bulb and the dry thermometer should read close to 99. 3/4 degrees. The dryness is definitely a sign that the humidity was too low. You simply dried out the eggs during incubation. The membranes you described seem to indicate this. What humidity did you have during incubation?

It could be a problem of heat. If you have the heat too high the eggs tend to dry out. Check your thermometers with a medical thermometer to be sure it is calibrated correctly. The problem with hatching indicate the chicks did not have enough moisture and the inside membrane dried out abnormally.
The dying of the chicks is another story. I do not know why this is happening. You will get a few dead chicks now and then for no apparent reason. Having the number die that you describe is not normal. Again, check to see that the heat for the chicks is OK and that they are eating and drinking. I would put Solu-Tracin in the water.
Don't give up! You are learning by doing. Gamebird breeders never make mistakes if they learn to never do the same thing again.

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QUESTION:I was wondering if you could help me out. I am hatching Bobwhite Quail Eggs. I have candled the eggs, and the fertile eggs are put on the hatching tray on the twenty first day. The problem I am having is that only a few eggs are hatching. When I check the eggs, they are fully developed dead chicks in the eggs. Some of the chicks also have a hard time getting out of the shell, and I have to help them get out. My temperature in the incubator is set at around 99.5 to 99.75 degrees, and my wet bulb is at about 86 degrees. I also sprintz my eggs when they are on the hatching tray twice a day.

From my last batch of eggs on the hatching tray only two chicks hatched on their own, and I had to help one chick out of it's shell. The rest of the eggs, which are seven, they did not hatch. Any help or suggestions that you could offer would be greatly appreciated.

ANSWER:You are probably running your wet bulb temperature too high. Cut the humidity to 83 degrees on the wet bulb during the first 21 days. When you put them in the hatcher, lower the dry temp. to about 98.5 degrees. Raise the wet bulb to 89-90 degrees during the hatching process. If you are using just one incubator to incubate and hatch your eggs you may not be able to do this. The inability to get out on their own is definitely an indication of too much humidity - they have grown to big to turn in the egg.

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About the author:

Thanks to Doctor Hayes for contributing this poultry article to poultryOne.com. You may reach the author at:

Leland B. Hayes, Ph.D.
P.O. Box 1682,
Valley Center, CA 92082
(760) 749-6829 FAX (760) 742-1173

Doctor Hayes publishes a very helpful poultry ezine. You can subscribe to it for free at www.LelandHayes.com

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