Keeping quail in winter — cold, light and the laying pause

Quail cope with cold far better than most keepers expect in their first winter. What harms them is not the frost but damp and draughts — and both are, as a rule, produced inside the house itself, not outdoors. Anyone who wants to improve something in winter therefore works on dryness and on air flow, not on heating.

Why frost matters less than moisture

A healthy, fully grown bird with complete plumage carries its insulation around with it: the feathers trap a layer of air, and that air keeps it warm. Two things destroy it. Moisture makes the plumage clump together, and wet plumage no longer insulates. A draught simply wipes the warm layer away — a bird sitting in a draught is colder at zero degrees than a dry bird in still air at a hard frost.

With chickens you worry about comb and wattles, because unfeathered tips are exposed to the cold there. Quail have none of that. They also sit on the ground and not on a perch, so their toes are kept warm under the belly plumage. Frostbite is not an issue with quail in practice — respiratory problems from damp, ammonia-laden house air very much are.

Caution is called for with three groups: young birds without finished plumage, birds in the middle of the moult and weakened birds. Anyone planning their flock makes sure the moult is finished before the first hard frost. A bird still growing feathers in December needs watching more closely.

Housing: dry, draught-free — and still ventilated

The most common winter mistake is well meant: the house is sealed all round, cracks are stuffed, hatches are closed. That keeps the warmth in, but everything else as well. Draught-free and airtight are not the same thing.

• A draught is directed air movement at bird height, felt with your hand just

above the bedding. That has to go.

• Ventilation is air exchange above the birds' heads. That has to be there.

In practice this means: close the weather side tight or screen it with a board, a tarpaulin or straw bales, and in exchange leave a permanently open exhaust area up under the roof. A roofed run, sheltered from the wind on three sides, takes a lot of pressure off the house, because the birds stay outside during the day and do not carry the moisture in at all.

Moisture has three sources, and all three are home-made: the birds' breath, the droppings and spilled drinking water. Damp droppings produce ammonia, and they do so at the bedding — that is, exactly where the birds sit and breathe. So do not smell standing up; crouch down.

Bedding in the cold season

Dry beats deep: a thin, dry layer is better in winter than a thick, damp one. Low-dust wood shavings, hemp or flax straw bedding and spelt husks have proved themselves, in practice usually five to ten centimetres deep — deep enough for scratching and for a dust bath. Damp hay and bark mulch hold water and go mouldy.

The most important job of the winter takes one minute — take out wet spots where they are, every day. Adding fresh bedding on top is no substitute for that; it only packs the moisture away.

Water that does not freeze

Ice is not water, and snow is no substitute: quail need liquid drinking water every day, even in prolonged frost. What has proved itself in practice:

• Two rounds a day with fresh water instead of one large supply. Small amounts

do freeze faster, but they are also drunk before it comes to that.

• Open bowls of rubber or soft plastic, from which the ice can be knocked out

without the vessel breaking. Nipple drinkers freeze at the tip first and drip after thawing.

• Do not put the drinker in the middle of the bedding but raised on a board or

in a tub, better still in the roofed run. Every splash that lands outside is one that does not burden the house air.

Heated drinkers are worth what any electrical device in dust, feathers and bedding is worth: they work, but they want looking after. If you use one, then a device expressly built for poultry and for outdoor use, with a thermostat rather than continuous operation, with the cable out of the birds' reach — quail peck at anything lying about — and on a circuit with a residual-current device. No cable drums under the bedding. The honest part remains: the most reliable frost protection is the second round in the afternoon.

Feed when it is cold

Warmth costs energy, and energy comes from the feed. In winter reckon on noticeably higher consumption with falling laying performance — that is normal and no sign of a mistake.

The basic feed stays the same layer feed. The widespread reach for wheat or a grain mix "for the warmth" dilutes exactly what the birds need now: protein, minerals and vitamins. If you feed something extra, then as a small addition in the afternoon and not as a replacement.

Beyond that: offer limestone or shell grit separately. Give green feed in small amounts and never frozen. Warm mash in the morning freezes and spoils quickly — give only as much as is eaten straight away. And in winter set up more feeding places than in summer: the birds spend longer in a smaller space, and low-ranking birds otherwise go short. Feed stores belong in closed containers, because in winter mice and rats look for the house too.

Light: why laying falls off

Laying follows day length, not temperature. When the days get shorter, performance drops, and in December it stops altogether in many flocks. That is not a deficiency but the built-in annual rhythm.

As a practical range: a constant light phase in the region of about 14 to 16 hours keeps a flock in lay; if day length falls well below about twelve hours, performance falls off. A lighting programme therefore replaces the missing hours. If you run one, then like this:

• Extend in the morning, not in the evening. If the light goes out abruptly in

the evening, the birds sit in the dark wherever they happen to be. A timer before sunrise and a natural fading at dusk are the calmer way.

• Only extend, never shorten. Any shortening of day length acts as a signal to

moult and sets the flock back.

• Dimmed rather than glaring. Bright light in a small space encourages feather

pecking.

• No permanent light. A continuous dark phase is part of it; light round the

clock is not a programme but stress.

And the honest part: a pause does the birds good. Laying is work, the moult needs quiet, and anyone who wants to keep their quail over several years is usually better off with a quiet winter than with a season pushed straight through. For pullets in their first winter a lighting programme can make sense, because they are in lay anyway; for older birds the pause is usually the better choice. Performance comes back by itself in spring, as soon as the days get longer.

Anyone who writes down laying days and losses over the years can see at a glance next autumn when the drop normally begins, and does not have to guess — that is exactly what the figures in the application are for.

The winter round in short