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Education Pt. 36: Health Check Walkthrough
This is an add-on to Behind the Scenes Pt. 10 (Turning Notes Into Decisions). After questions came in about what the 2-minute pen scan actually is, here’s the exact walkthrough we use.
Zero G Quail Farms
6 days ago3 min read
Behind the Scenes Pt. 10: Turning Notes Into Decisions
If you’re serious about improving fertility, growth, egg output, and customer consistency, this is the playbook: measure → decide → repeat.
Zero G Quail Farms
6 days ago4 min read
Education Pt. 35: Predator Proofing for Quail
Outdoor Coturnix setups can work—if you treat predator proofing like a system, not a single upgrade. Predators don’t need an invitation. They only need one weak point: a soft latch, a gap at the roofline, a corner they can pry, or a drift that becomes a staircase.
Zero G Quail Farms
Apr 144 min read
Education Pt. 34: Water Systems 101: Cups vs Nipples vs Troughs (What We Use and Why)
f you want calm Coturnix, you protect three things every day: water, feed, airflow. Water is the first system to fail, and when it fails you don’t just lose hydration—you get wet pens, ammonia, fighting, and production dips.
Zero G Quail Farms
Apr 84 min read
Education Pt. 33: Starter Covey Blueprint The First 12 Birds Without the Chaos
Most people don’t fail at quail because they bought the wrong bird. They fail because they bought birds before the systems were ready—then tried to improvise feed, water, lighting, and space on the fly.
Zero G Quail Farms
Mar 314 min read
Education Pt.32: Pen Layout Psychology: Why Your Quail Fight in One Setup and Chill in Another
Coturnix aren’t complicated, but they are brutally honest about stress. If a pen layout creates bottlenecks, bright glare, or nowhere to “reset,” the birds will do what prey animals do under pressure—panic, pile, and start picking on the weakest link.
Zero G Quail Farms
Mar 274 min read
Education Pt. 31: Feeder Birds, Done Right: Welfare, Biosecurity, and Consistency for Raptor Keepers
What “reliable feeder quail” actually requires—no shortcuts
Zero G Quail Farms
Mar 243 min read
Behind the Scenes Pt. 9: The Quail keeper's Daily Route: A 12-Minute Chore Loop That Prevents 80% of Problems
Mission Brief
Most quail problems don’t “randomly happen.” They build quietly—one water nipple slows, one feeder clumps, one corner stays damp, one timer drifts—until the day you walk in to chaos. Our fix is boring on purpose: a 12-minute daily route we run the same way, in the same order, every day. It catches issues early, keeps the covey calm, and keeps you out of emergency mode.
Zero G Quail Farms
Mar 204 min read
Education Pt. 30: Spring Set Day SOP: Receiving, Resting, and Setting Eggs (Local + Shipped)
Zero G’s exact protocol so your first set starts clean and stays clean. Mission Brief Spring sets are where the season gets decided. If your first eggs start sloppy—wrong storage, rushed setting, damaged air cells ignored—you’ll spend the rest of the hatch chasing problems that weren’t “incubator issues” at all. This is our Set Day SOP at Zero G Quail Farms: how we receive eggs (local or shipped), how we rest them, how we candle, and how we set them so the hatch begins with
Zero G Quail Farms
Mar 175 min read
Education Pt.29: The First 72 Hours After Hatch: What Matters Most
If you followed our hatch window schedule (set day → lockdown at Day 14 → hatch Days 17–18), you should be seeing your first Coturnix chicks this week or next.
Zero G Quail Farms
Mar 14 min read
Education Pt.28: Understanding Quail Behavior: What's normal, what's not.
Coturnix quail are honest birds. When something is off, they usually tell you—fast. The trick is learning the difference between normal quail behavior (busy, pecky, skittish, routine-driven) and red-flag behavior that signals stress, nutritional gaps, or a system problem.
Zero G Quail Farms
Feb 274 min read
Education Pt.27: Quail or the Egg: Choosing Your Starting Point
Should you begin with live birds or hatching eggs? Here’s the Zero G take. Spring production is around the corner, and a lot of you are deciding where to start.
Zero G Quail Farms
Feb 194 min read
Education Pt.26: Setting Up Your First Brooder: A Calm, Simple Review
Your first brooder can be as simple or as fancy as you want—just don’t build something that overwhelms you to make or maintain.
Zero G Quail Farms
Feb 163 min read
Education Pt.25: Valentine’s Weekend: 5 Things You Can Build (for your covey and your significant other)
Perfect excuse to grab coffee, crank a playlist, and finally tackle those “I’ll get to it” projects—together. Two sets of hands beats one every time.
Zero G Quail Farms
Feb 123 min read
Quail Oops Files: A Respectful Look at Genetic Oddities
This isn’t a freak show. It’s a respect-first, learn-first guide to help keepers recognize outliers quickly, care well, and make better breeding decisions.
Zero G Quail Farms
Feb 106 min read
Education Pt.24:Budget Coturnix Quail Farming
Mission Brief: Less Shiny, More Steady
You don’t need a boutique barn or hundreds of acres to raise great Coturnix.
Zero G Quail Farms
Feb 84 min read
Behind the Scenes Pt.8: 7-Day Warning: Incubation and Season Countdown Starts Now!
You’ve got about one week to launch the season, if you haven't already started that process. That means today is not a “think about it” day—it’s a prep and verify day.
Zero G Quail Farms
Jan 274 min read
Behind the Scenes Pt.7: Behind the Launch: How Zero G Quail Farms Began — and What It Means for You
Zero G started as a laugh—“let’s get quail”—that turned into a launch plan.
Zero G Quail Farms
Jan 253 min read
Education Pt.21: Incubation 101: Timing, Temp, and Humidity — Quick Review
This is your fast recap of the incubation fundamentals we keep circling back to across our recent posts: “Choosing the Right Incubator for Your Goals,” “Troubleshooting Failed Hatches,” “Myth of ‘Shrink-Wrapped’ Chicks,” “Holiday Hatchers,” “Starting a Breeding Program: The Zero G Way,” and “It’s the New Year: Hatching Your Breeders’ First Eggs.”
Zero G Quail Farms
Jan 213 min read
Education Pt.19: Troubleshooting Failed Hatches in Coturnix Quail
A “failed hatch” is rarely one culprit—it’s a chain.
Zero G Quail Farms
Jan 154 min read
Help Us Improve the Mission
We’d love to hear from you — and it doesn’t have to be a big formal review. If you’ve made a purchase, taken a class, or even just explored the site, your feedback helps us fine-tune the Zero G experience and keep improving what we build next. Tell us what you loved, what you’d like to see added, or where we can make things smoother — every note helps us support the community better.
Tristi and Brent Buchanan
Owners of Zero G Quail Farms, Quail Education & Compliance, Business insight, Behind the Scenes, Colorado Quail Techniques.
Guest Blog Writer: Aaron Guidroz
Owner Guidroz Family Farm, Quail Education, Business insight, sustainability practices, homestead insight and pratices.
Guest Blog Writer: Kelli Knecht
Owner Feathered Knechitons, small space sustainability, Quail information, Arts & Crafts
Guest Blog Writer: Homestead Matters
Owners Caiti and Dom, who live on a small suburban property in Western Oregon. "Basic 1850's housewife stuff, homestyle cooking, homeopathic remedies, and homesteading and gardening in small spaces."
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