Everyone's always posting about deer food plots, but what about bobwhite quail habitat? What would be the best things to plant for them? Keep in mind, I have zero experience with habitat management. In addition to planting stuff, what other land improvements would help foster an environment favorable to them?

Our bobwhite population here is spotty. While I usually don't hear any here near the house, just about a mile down the road I hear/see them pretty frequently.

We have a bunch in a field of millet anytime I plant it. I believe burning would be most beneficial to the quail as far as native habitat

They need food cover and bare ground. The bare ground is so the chicks can catch bugs more easily from what I read years ago when I was competing in bird dog trials.

Habitat loss from changing farming practices has been the hardest on them. We went from 10, 20 to 100 acre fields with fence rows and tree lines to wide open cleaned out field a rabbit had to pack it's lunch to make it across to accommodate the large farm equipment used today and the several thousand acre farmer.. gone are the small family farms.

Nest predation is hard on the few remaining birds. A possum or coon will wike out a hole nest in one sitting making it hard to build any population.

On my farm I never mow or cut it all at once I do small sections wait a few weeks to a month than do more . This leaves it in different stages of growth and there is always a place for the wildlife to have shelter and food. I also don't bushhog from mid April tell mid June in hopes the fawn are big enough they will move out of the way at that point. Had a few that didn't early spring and I'm a Softy and didn't like it so it's an easy solution. Besides I'm busy with bees then anyway.( That's what I tell myself so I don't think I'm to soft anyway)

Controlled fire on a 2 year rotation if you have piney woods. If fire isnt a possibility and you have mostly hardwoods....with few open, sunlit, weedy areas...then it is unlikely you'll ever have quail.

Plant cover and food such as corn,millet,clover,etc.Going to be releasing some bobwhite quail in 3 weeks.

I do have mostly hardwoods. I do have some open, weedy areas but not really an abundance of them. I've heard wild quail here once or twice calling, but that's it. I released a few last year (actually they released themselves 3 weeks early on the night we had a big storm no less, most perished in the storm) but two of them survived all summer, fall and winter and only disappeared several weeks ago. Thinking they may have gone in search of mates as both were male.

Anyways, I was wanting to release some more. I know the survival rate is pretty dismal. I just wondered if there was anything I could do to help improve their chances somewhat.

Properly flight conditioned and minimal contact pen raised quail will act like wild birds. Unhealthy quail will die. Supplementing well raised birds works. Reproduction is not successful. Remove coon, possum, skunks, and feral cats and they thrive. They must have overhead cover to get away from hawks.

This kind of habitat…



Quail need cover. Nesting cover is thick areas. Brood cover has an open bottom for foraging, but overhead cover to protect against aerial attack.
Ragweed makes great cover and a food source.
Broomsedge makes great cover.
Partridge pea is good cover and a great food source when it really matters.
Any natural vegetation is good.
Fire is your friend for all wildlife.
You can see in the video this was about a 3-4 week old burn and the quail are loving it.

Pen-raised quail won't work. Even those raised in a large flight pen with minimal human contact. They just don't have the prey instinct they need to survive.

You'll just be feeding the predators.....but, hey! Then you can trap them....except for the hawks.

We got a dozen to take to another farm to train some dogs and have shooters shoot at the flush, and hawks were picking them off before the dogs could find them.
The manager won’t allow any “release” birds anywhere near the “quail woods.” He’s not taking a chance of one surviving and possibly spreading disease amongst the wild birds.

Yessir...diseases could be an issue, too.

A Johnny house makes good habitat but even then if not set in the right place you're just feeding the predators.
As already mentioned, cover with open under-story (at quail level) and canopy for hawk/owl protection.

Bruce; What would be the point of letting Quail loose on Silver ridge at the end of May?

Listening to them.Maybe they will nest and raise up little ones in the wild.

Buckwheat and foxtail millet would be a good start.

Several good pdf files available online.

My takeaway on reading a few. Dirt, overhead cover and landscape sized tracts. They need access to bare dirt so regular prescribed fire, no turfgrasses instead native buch grasses, forbs/weedy cover/woody understory for overhead protection and all this in various stages of diverse growth over several thousand acres to allow ample room for multiple coveys.

I used to buy quail from a breeder in Tralfagar, Indiana. He banded many hundreds of bobwhite quail and released them in the Fall. He trapped back the survivors in the Spring, with call birds in recall pens. He only used the birds that survived the Winter, on their own, in his breeding program. He had by far the best quality, wild like bobwhite, out of the many thousands I have bought and had. Many people I sold them to or birds out of them to, successfully reintroduced breeding populations of bobwhite, at least on a short term basis.

I think the state DNRs should trap wild bobwhite, raise large numbers of chicks out of them using light to force them to double clutch. They should breed the resulting birds heavily, for no more than 3 years and restock them in the wild and start the breeding program again with birds straight out of the wild.

Captivity quickly changes the genetics in wild animals, through the generations. By only using birds only recently out of the wild. You can keep the traits they need to survive.

I would find someone in your area, who does something similar, of if legal, trap wild Bobwhite and do it yourself.

Keith

Habitat management is the key to bobwhite quail as it is for most wild species.

That pen-raised stuff is not long term. Been tried by many landowners and state wildlife agencies, especially with gallinacious birds such as quail and turkey.

Keith how would a guy go about live trapping wild bobwhites? What method or trapping system would you use?

Cage trap with a funnel with a live quail.

So you would use some grain or seed for bait? Where would you get a bird funnel cage trap?

Not legal here in Georgia to trap quail or any game bird.....and most non-game birds.

The live quail is the bait inside the cage in a separate compartment.

A lot of feed and grain stores as well as gamebirds farms sell them.

I would use a recall trap, which is just a wire cage with a wire funnel going in. The funnel goes from the ground outside the cage into the box, where it ends about 8" from the floor, sticking into the cage about 8". The small end of the funnel should be just large enough for the bobwhite to squeeze out.

To bait it, you just put a single bobwhite, usually male in the trap. He calls in other bobwhite. The trap catches well anytime of year Bobwhite are staying in coveys.

Dog trainers and preserves frequently use them to get set birds back. Wild birds readily go into them too.

Keith

The traps generally look something like this:



You can make it completely out of wire, but a lay a board on top or something else to provide some shade and cover from predators. Thick grass works to cover it too.

I looked for a decent video of somebody building a recall trap, but couldn't find one. There are a lot of videos of Johnny houses/recall pens, but those aren't easily portable and overkill for catching wild bobwhite. Johnny houses work great for keeping and receiving domestic bobwhite. They are mostly an above ground pen, with a trap attached that can be opened, to let quail into the main pen and securely closed to keep predators, like weasels and rats out.

Keith

I don't know where the information is that I was reading but I always wanted to raise quail with banty chickens loose on the farm. They adopt them as their own and teach them foraging and etc. That always seemed like a good project.

Unrelated but there was a guy here, in Ohio even I think, that had a big post about raising them and showed his boxes. They were narrow like two feet wide and long like ten feet long with a screened top with natural scratch and debris in them. Lined up like garden beds in his barn I think. Thats how I see it in my head I guess but I'm not sure. Seems like Keith C knew the guy but I'm not sure about that either. There was lots of info in that post about successfully raising quail.

That is me. The boxes and quail in the pictures are mine. In a good year I raise and sell tens of thousands of coturnix quail and thousands of button quail. I've raised them since 1995. I've raised and sold lots of bobwhite, in many colors, Gambels, valley and blue scale quail too, but don't have any right now.

For anyone interested in learning more about raising quail and homesteading, Quailcon, the International Conference on quail and homesteading is on Labor Day Weekend in Miamisburg, Ohio. It"s a 3 dag event with camping available on site. We get a few hundred people from all over the US and other countries. The main focus is on coturnix quail, but there's a large numbers of classes and presentations including hands on butchering, cooking, other livestock,, selling plants, medicinal herbs, first aid, marketing and more. I"m a paid expert at it every year. Last year I taught and spoke for around 14 hours.

https://myshirefarm.com/quail-con/

Keith

My quail just started laying eggs today.