This is the equipment, feed, and supplies I actually use — not a list of things I found online. Everything here has been in daily use in my setup, most of it since 2022. Where something failed on me, I say so.
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- The Cage Setup
- Hatching and Brooding
- Feed & Supplements
- Weekly Supplies
- Where I Buy Birds & Eggs
- What Hasn’t Worked (Yet)
The Cage Setup
Hatching Time 2-Layer Quail Cage — the foundation of my whole setup since day one. Pre-built, with egg roll-out trays, feeders, and watering built in. Assembly took longer than the videos suggest (budget an afternoon, watch their videos, wear gloves), but four years in I’d buy it again without hesitation. I’ve since expanded to a three-level rack.
- Get $25 off your order automatically with my link: hatchingtime.com/thegrantclanquail
- Spending over $250? Code SV127GBA39AFF takes another $10 off (new customers, one-time use)
Hard limit I learned the hard way: about 3 birds per single cage section. More than that and they can’t all reach the feed comfortably, and crowding is how I lost my first bird.
Automotive drip trays (Advance Auto, 24″ galvanized) — my replacement for the standard manure trays. The extra width catches droppings that would otherwise fall into the food tray of the level below. Cheap, durable, and I can hose or pressure-wash them clean.
5-gallon water tank — worth it over the smaller tanks. Less refilling, more margin for error — and after losing two birds to an empty tank in 2023, margin for error is the whole point. My rule now: the tank never drops below half.
Hatching & Brooding
Nurture Right 360 incubator (Tractor Supply) — used for every hatch since 2023. Temperamental about humidity until you learn it; my main lessons: don’t add extra water at lockdown until you see where humidity settles, and trust an independent sensor over the built-in display.
YoLink temperature/humidity sensor — sits inside the incubator and alerts my phone when anything drifts. This has caught overnight humidity spikes and an empty water channel while I was at work. If you incubate, independent monitoring is not optional.
A cheap Wi-Fi camera pointed at the incubator — lets me watch for pipping from anywhere and record hatches. Also useful pointed at the brooder afterward.
Hatching Time brooder pens — where every batch of chicks goes after hatch. Two tricks I use every time now: flip the food-tray guard around backwards for the first two weeks so chicks can’t climb in and get stuck, and check the water lines nightly — air locks in the hoses have nearly cost me birds twice.
Hatching Time grow-out pen (optional) — I have a grow out pen so that once the chicks get so large I can move some down into the grow out pen. This is also where I leave the extra males before culling them. When I got this I planned on raising meat birds, and this would help with getting more birds to the 6 to 8 weeks.
Feed & Supplements
H&H Feed Game Bird Crumble (50 lb) — handhfeed.com — soy-free, corn-free feed I switched to in my first month and still use today. It runs about twice the price of standard game bird feed (~$75/bag), and that’s a choice, not a requirement — standard game bird crumble from the local feed store works fine.
Oyster shell — free-choice calcium mixed into the feed once the birds are laying age. When they stop leaving it behind, laying is usually about to start.
Dried mealworms / black soldier fly larvae — the universal motivator. One thing I learned: mix them into the feed instead of sprinkling on top, or the birds eat every worm in minutes and ignore their actual food.
Biochar — (Urban Worm Company) — this one started as a crossover from my composting setup. I was already using biochar in my urban worm bag, and I started adding a handful to the birds’ feed mix. I do it for two reasons: general gut health for the birds, and it noticeably cut down on the smell from the manure trays.
The smell difference alone would keep me doing it, but there’s also real research behind biochar as a poultry feed additive. Studies with quail specifically have found that small amounts of biochar in feed can bind mycotoxins (toxins from mold in feed), support gut health and growth, and improve feed efficiency — it’s being looked at as an eco-friendly alternative to antibiotic feed additives. Research on litter management shows the same absorption properties that help in the feed also absorb moisture and odor in bedding — which matches exactly what I’ve noticed in my trays. And when the trays get dumped, the biochar goes right into the compost where it improves the soil.
I’m not making health claims — I’m a hobbyist, not a researcher — but it’s cheap, the research direction is encouraging, my birds have been healthy, and my shed smells better. That’s enough for me. A handful mixed into the feed with each refill.
My feeding routine: old feed out into a pan, two cups fresh feed in, biochar + oyster shell + a handful of BSFL layered on, two more cups of feed on top, old feed sprinkled back over. Nothing wasted, and the birds dig through the feed to find the good stuff.
Weekly Supplies
Aluminum cake pans + play sand — the sand bath system. Roughly one pan per two birds, once a week. Expect sand absolutely everywhere; that’s the point.
Pine shavings — what I line manure trays with now (started with paper towels, which also work). Easier dumping, composts clean.
Pressure washer — not bought for the birds, but it makes cage cleaning dramatically easier. The Hatching Time cages break down and pressure-wash almost back to new. If you’re cleaning trays with a garden hose, you’ll understand why everyone with quail eventually mentions pressure washers.
Egg cartons, filled in order — not a product so much as a habit: I place each day’s eggs in sequence in the carton instead of randomly. It’s a free way to spot when a bird stops laying. I bought a stack of 50 in 2022 and i ma still using most of them today.
Quail Egg Scissors (Amazon) — Quail Egg Scissors (Amazon) — if you’re going to actually eat your quail eggs, these are a must. Quail eggshells are deceptively tough — the membrane inside is thick relative to the egg, and trying to crack one like a chicken egg usually ends with shell fragments in your bowl and yolk on your fingers. Egg scissors snip the top off cleanly in one motion: cut, tip, done.
We were using egg scissors on store-bought quail eggs back in 2018, years before we ever raised a bird — we bought them just to figure out if quail eggs were something we’d actually want to keep up with. Back then they were mostly a treat, usually quail eggs in hash brown nests. Now that we raise our own, quail eggs show up constantly — omelettes, scrambled eggs, poached, boiled, Hollandaise, Béarnaise, and as a substitute in almost any recipe that calls for eggs (3-4 quail eggs per chicken egg). The scissors I use now are the ones linked above, and they’ve been in the kitchen drawer for about a year and give to any that I sell or give eggs to..
Where I Buy Birds & Eggs
- Live birds: Southwest Gamebirds — both my starter birds (2022) and the October 2022 quintets came from them, shipped, healthy on arrival.
- Hatching eggs: Myshire Farm — my 2026 hatch came from their eggs.
- One ordering lesson from 2026: double-check exactly which variety you’re ordering. I meant to order feather-sexable eggs and accidentally ordered Jumbo Mixed — which is how I ended up with five beautiful white birds that can’t be feather-sexed at all. Beautiful mistake, but a mistake.
What Hasn’t Worked (Yet)
DIY black soldier fly larvae bin — I built one from buckets and PVC to grow my own BSFL from compost. The design worked; the raccoons didn’t cooperate. They pulled the harvest tubes out nightly until I barricaded everything in bricks, and the yield never justified the hassle. I plan to rebuild it raccoon-proof this fall — that’ll be documented when it happens.
That’s genuinely the only thing I’d call a failure. Everything else on this page I’d buy again.
Questions about any of this setup? The Quail Log shows most of it in daily use, or start with the Start Here guide if you’re new. New guides and updates go out to the email list.