Quail chicks, days 8 to 14: the scruffy stage

Week two is when quail chicks stop being adorable little fluffballs and start looking like they've been dragged through a hedge.

Patchy. Gangly. Half-bald in places, with stiff little feathers poking out at angles. Every year someone messages us convinced their birds are ill, and every year they're absolutely fine — this is simply what growing up looks like when you do it this quickly.

It's also the week they learn to fly, which changes everything about how you keep them.

Put a lid on. Today.

If you take one thing from this page: quail chicks can fly at around two weeks old, and they are much better at it than you expect.

Not fluttering. Actual flight, vertically, from a standing start, with no run-up. A two-week-old quail can clear the side of a storage tub and be behind the washing machine before you've registered it happened.

Fit a mesh lid or a piece of netting across the brooder before day ten. Mesh rather than solid, so air still moves through.

A note on height: quail startle straight upwards. In a tall brooder they build up enough speed to hurt themselves on a hard lid. Either keep the brooder shallow, or use soft netting rather than rigid mesh. This is the same principle that governs adult quail housing, and it catches people out at both stages.

Temperature: start stepping it down

Drop to 32 °C (90 °F) under the heat source for days 8–14, then another 3 °C the following week.

They're growing feathers now, which means they're beginning to insulate themselves. Keeping them at week-one temperatures actively slows feathering and leaves you with birds that struggle when they eventually move outside.

As always, watch the birds rather than the dial. Huddled and shrieking means cold; spread out at the edges with wings held away from the body and beaks open means too hot. By the end of this week you should see them spending real stretches away from the heat entirely.

What's actually happening to their feathers

The scruffiness has a mechanism behind it. Chicks hatch in down, which is fine for warmth but useless for flight. Over week two, proper feathers push through — encased in a waxy sheath, which is what gives them that spiky, half-finished look.

The chick then preens the sheaths off, which is why you'll find fine dusty debris around the brooder and why they spend so much time apparently nibbling themselves.

Wing and tail feathers come first, which is why they look particularly odd — enormous wings, bald patches on the body, a head still in baby fluff. By around day 21 they'll look properly feathered.

Growing feathers is protein-hungry, which is exactly why the 24–30% starter crumb matters. Skimping here shows up as poor feathering and slow growth.

Feed and water this week

Still game bird starter crumb, 24–30% protein. Don't switch to a lower-protein feed yet — six weeks is the earliest, and there's no rush.

You can stop grinding it now. They can manage standard crumb comfortably from about day five or six.

Keep the marbles in the drinker. They're bigger, but they're also faster and clumsier, and a two-week-old quail can still get waterlogged and chilled. Two full weeks is the minimum; three does no harm.

They'll eat more than seems plausible. Keep the feeder topped up — quail have fast metabolisms and running out for a few hours genuinely sets them back at this age.

Space

Whatever brooder felt roomy last week will feel tight by day fourteen. Crowding at this stage causes the two problems that plague quail keeping:

• Feather pecking — birds pulling each other's new feathers out, which is painful and can draw blood.
• Toe pecking — usually a sign they're bored, hungry, or too warm.

Once pecking starts and blood is drawn, quail will escalate quickly, so it's much easier to prevent than to stop. Give them more room than you think they need, and if you can't, split them into two brooders.

If you do see pecking: check space first, then temperature (too hot is a common trigger), then protein, then light levels. Lowering the light noticeably calms things down.

Enrichment

They're properly curious now, and busy birds don't peck each other. Cheap and effective additions:

• A shallow tray of dry sand for dust bathing. They'll start at around two weeks and it's genuinely lovely to watch.
• A small branch or piece of kitchen roll tube to hide in and hop over.
• A little chopped green — dandelion leaf, a bit of lettuce. Only if they also have chick grit available, otherwise they can't digest it.

Anything other than crumb means grit. Chick grit, not oyster shell — oyster shell is calcium for laying birds and it's harmful to growing chicks.

Cleaning, which gets worse

Sorry. They're eating more, so they're producing more, and the brooder gets unpleasant faster than it did last week.

Daily is the minimum now. Ammonia is the enemy — it damages the respiratory tract and sets up problems that show up weeks later. The test is simple: if you can smell it when you lean over, it needed doing yesterday.

Damp bedding is also where coccidiosis thrives, which is one of the few genuinely serious diseases in young poultry. Dry bedding is most of the defence.

What to watch for

• Clicking or wheezing when breathing — usually ammonia. Clean out and improve ventilation.
• A chick sitting apart, fluffed up, eyes closing — always worth isolating and warming gently.
• Blood on any bird — separate it immediately. Others will target a wound.
• Blood in droppings, or a chick going rapidly downhill — could be coccidiosis. Speak to a vet; there are treatments but they need to be prompt.

Worth knowing in advance whether a local vet will see poultry. Not all do, and it's a poor discovery to make on a Saturday afternoon.

Handling

You can handle them a bit more now — they're less fragile than last week. Cup them rather than grip them, and stay low over a surface, because a startled quail will spring out of your hands without warning.

Manage your expectations, though. Quail don't tame the way chickens do. Even hand-reared birds stay flighty. They'll get used to you and stop panicking when you approach, and that's about as far as it goes.

Coming up

By day fourteen they'll be feathered, fast and noisy, and starting to look like small versions of adult birds.

Next comes the interesting part: working out who's male and who's female, and dealing with what you find. That's days 14 to 30.