Quail chicks, days 1 to 7: mistakes to avoid
The riskiest week of a quail chick’s life, and how to get them all through it.
If you're going to lose quail chicks, it will almost certainly happen this week.
That sounds bleak, but it's actually good news, because nearly every week-one loss comes down to four specific causes and all four are preventable with about twenty minutes of setup. Get this week right and the rest is comparatively easy.
A day-old coturnix chick weighs roughly 6–8 grams. It's about the size of a bumblebee, it can't regulate its own temperature, and it has very poor judgement. Plan accordingly.
Set the brooder up before they hatch
The brooder must be at temperature and stable before the first chick goes in. Not warming up. At temperature.
What you need
- A container with solid sides. A large plastic storage tub, a cardboard box, a proper brooder. Solid sides matter — draughts at floor level are what chill chicks.
- A heat source. A heat plate is far better than a lamp (see below).
- A thermometer at chick height, not clipped to the side halfway up.
- Non-slip flooring. Rubber shelf liner, or kitchen roll. Never newspaper — it's lethally slippery for chicks.
- A chick drinker with marbles in it. Non-negotiable. More below.
- A shallow feed tray. A jam jar lid works.
- A lid or mesh cover. Not needed on day one, essential by day ten.
Heat plate vs heat lamp
We'd genuinely urge a heat plate. They cost a bit more and they're worth it:
- No fire risk. Heat lamps in dusty wooden sheds start fires every single year. It is the most common serious accident in small-scale poultry keeping.
- Chicks sleep properly. A red lamp on 24 hours means they never get darkness.
- They self-regulate. Chicks go under when cold and come out when warm, exactly as they would with a mother bird.
- Much cheaper to run.
If you do use a lamp: secure it with a chain as well as its clamp, keep it well away from anything flammable, and use a ceramic bulb holder.
Temperature
| Age | Temperature under the heat source |
|---|---|
| Days 1–7 | 35 °C (95 °F) |
| Days 8–14 | 32 °C (90 °F) |
| Days 15–21 | 29 °C (85 °F) |
| Days 22–28 | 26 °C (79 °F) |
| 4 weeks + | Ambient, if fully feathered and sheltered |
Crucially, heat only one end of the brooder. Chicks need somewhere warm and somewhere cooler so they can choose. A uniformly heated box gives them no way to escape if it's too hot, and overheating kills faster than cold.
Read the chicks, not the thermometer
The birds are a better instrument than the thermometer, and they're free:
- Piled in a heap under the heat, cheeping loudly and insistently: too cold.
- Pressed against the far walls, wings held out, panting: too hot.
- Scattered about, some under, some out, pottering, quiet chirrups: exactly right.
A loud, shrill, continuous cheep is a distress call. Contented chicks make a soft intermittent noise. You'll learn the difference in a day.
The four things that kill week-one chicks
1. Drowning
The big one. Quail chicks are small enough to fall into a standard drinker trough, get waterlogged, and be unable to climb out.
Fill the drinker with marbles or clean pebbles so there's water in the gaps but nowhere deep enough to submerge. Keep it that way for a full two weeks. Use a proper narrow-trough chick drinker, never an open dish.
This single measure prevents more losses than anything else you'll do.
2. Chilling
A chick that gets cold and stays cold will not recover on its own. Watch for one sitting apart from the group, hunched, eyes closing, not moving.
If you find one, warm it slowly — cupped in your hands, or in a small box near (not on) the heat source. Sudden intense heat is as dangerous as the cold. Once it's moving again, a drop of water with a little electrolyte or a smear of honey on the beak often perks it up.
3. Spraddle leg
Legs sliding out sideways so the chick can't stand. It's caused by slippery flooring in the first few days, while the joints are soft.
Prevention is simply grip. Non-slip matting or kitchen roll from the moment they hatch — including in the incubator during lockdown.
If it happens, it's usually fixable if you act within a day or two: a small hobble made from a plaster or a soft hair band, joining the legs at the correct width apart, worn for two or three days. Plenty of clear step-by-steps exist online. Left untreated it becomes permanent.
4. Pasty bottom
Droppings dry and cake over the vent, blocking it. It's fatal if not cleared, and it's usually a symptom of being too hot, or of stress.
Check every chick's bottom daily for the first week. To clear it, soften with a cotton bud and warm water and ease it off gently — never pull dry, as you'll tear the skin. Then dry the chick properly before it goes back under the heat.
If several have it, your brooder is probably too warm.
Feed and water
Feed: game bird or turkey starter crumb at 24–30% protein. Chick crumb sold for chickens is around 18–20% and is not enough — quail grow extraordinarily fast and need the protein.
For the first three or four days, grind the crumb finer. A food processor, a pestle and mortar, or a rolling pin and a freezer bag. Standard crumb is too big for a bird this size.
Never give layers pellets to chicks. The calcium level is dangerous for growing birds.
Water: fresh, clean, changed at least daily. Chicks foul it constantly. Some keepers add a chick electrolyte for the first few days, particularly after a difficult hatch — useful, but not a substitute for clean water.
Dip each chick's beak in the water as you introduce it to the brooder. They learn by copying, so once one has found it the rest follow, but the first few need showing.
Keep food and water at opposite ends — food near the cool end, so they move about, and neither directly under the heat where it'll go stale and warm.
Grit
Not needed while they're only on crumb. If you start offering anything else — chopped greens, small treats — they need chick grit to grind it. Not oyster shell; that's calcium for laying birds and it's harmful to chicks.
Cleaning
Daily. Quail chicks produce an astonishing amount of mess for their size, and damp bedding causes ammonia build-up, which causes respiratory problems.
Replace kitchen roll daily; if using shavings, scrape and top up daily and strip it fully every few days. If you can smell ammonia when you lean over the brooder, you're already behind.
Handling
Keep it brief this week. They're fragile and stress genuinely sets them back.
A daily health check — bottoms, legs, general liveliness — is plenty. From week two you can handle them more, though honestly quail never become cuddly the way chickens do. They tolerate you rather than enjoy you, and that's just how they are.
Losses
Even with everything right, you may lose one or two. Some chicks hatch with problems that were never survivable, and there's frequently nothing you could have done.
It's worth saying plainly, especially if children are involved: a small number of losses in week one is normal, it doesn't mean you did badly, and it's part of hatching. Remove any that die promptly — for hygiene, and because the others will peck at them.
The end of week one
By day seven they'll have roughly doubled in size, tiny wing feathers will be showing, and they'll be considerably faster and more confident than the wobbly things you started with.
The hard part is over. Next comes the phase where they turn genuinely scruffy and learn to fly — days 8 to 14, which is where the lid becomes essential.