What issues need attention in quail chick rearing?
Young quails are put into cages for rearing after hatching. A coal stove with a smoke exhaust pipe is used for heating. At one day of age, the house temperature is 32°C, then decreases by 0.5°C each day, until at 20 days of age when the temperature is above 20°C, heating is stopped.
Young quails are given broiler chick feed (crude protein content not less than 22%) until they lay 1 egg, then switch to layer feed with crude protein not less than 18% at 90% plus 10% soybean meal. When the laying rate reaches 40%, use 80% layer feed plus 20% soybean meal, so the crude protein levels are 20.5% and 23% respectively. Keep feed in the trough for 23 hours every day, and at 14:00-15:00 they should “clean the trough” (let the quails eat all the feed in the trough before adding more). When cleaning the trough, put about 10 grams of washed limestone grit the size of mung beans into each cage. If conditions permit, add chopped carrots, lettuce, milk vetch, water spinach, amaranth, and sweet potato leaves, about 2 grams per bird. Note that once green feed is started, it must be continued year-round without interruption. Intermittent feeding will affect egg production.
Keep the quail house quiet, and outsiders are strictly forbidden to enter.
For the immunization and health care program for quails, Old Cao also has his own routine: after receiving the chicks, give them poultry multivitamin electrolyte in drinking water. From the next day, use soluble powder of lincomycin hydrochloride plus spectinomycin in drinking water for 3-5 consecutive days to prevent and treat E. coli, pullorum disease, staphylococcus, and streptococcus infections. At 7 days of age, use Newcastle disease virus strain IV —— infectious bronchitis H120 for drinking water immunization. During the warming stage, if diarrhea occurs, amikacin sulfate can be used in drinking water. Around 30 days of age, use avian influenza —— Newcastle disease strain I recombinant bivalent inactivated vaccine in drinking water or by eye and nose drops.
In addition, if diarrhea occurs during the laying period (fowl cholera or E. coli disease, etc.), a compound preparation of doxycycline plus neomycin can be used in drinking water for two to three days, which will not cause a drop in the laying rate. In hot weather, heat stress is more common in quails, so 50 grams of vitamin C can be added to every 100 kg of drinking water.