Snatched a photo post power washing (before cleanup of the area), of the quail tower we built last year. I built it off someone else's specs and it's okay, but not ideal for me. It's larger than the plastic one, and cheaper to build, but the poop trays are too large and the 1/2" hardware cloth is too small (hard to clean). The water system is great, much sturdier and easier to use than the plastic one. But I did fuck up the bottom cage, it was supposed to be another rollout but I put the wire on the wrong way so it's flat bottomed now for growing out babies. I don't like it.
I plan to sell it (already have someone potentially lined up for it), and build 2 others that are slightly more sensible for me personally. I'm going to use pet crate plastic trays underneath instead of metal oil trays (they corrode, under repeated exposure for high pH poop), and just use 2 smaller ones instead of 1 giant one, which will make it a lot less cumbersome. I'm also going to use 1x2" wire instead of 1/2" which will hold the adults. Will have to figure out how I want to grow out babies.
While we power wash, the birds have to go into carriers. They're normally on coated wire floors, to keep them clean, so they go nuts about a dust bath in some shavings.
We also played musical quails today, and got everyone banded with color coded zip ties. One green tie for 2024, yellow for 2023, red for 2022. One blue tie on the same leg for blue laying hens. One blue tie on the opposite leg for blue males. Black on the same leg for sale hens. This is much better than my previous system of put colored bands on birds and forget why.
