On Friday, a couple of people from the Coventry Rabbit and Guinea Sanctuary came for the boy chicks which we were keeping outside. They have an aviary and wanted some quail to keep in it.

We've since moved some of the other birds outside to the hutch, so all the birds now have even more space each. We have a reasonable cock to hen ratio (at least 2-3 hens per cock is recommended) so that should minimize the chance of fighting while still giving us a decent supply of eggs.

Earlier in the year, Emma built a multi-storey quail house, with each shelf having a wide plastic tray where the quail can live. The trays have high sides so they can't kick too much bedding out.

There are nest boxes in the corners of some of the trays. Yesterday morning we found 'Stumpy' trapped between the tray and the wire mesh. This was in the corner where one of the nest boxes were, so we think he might have fallen off and down the side. In a couple of months of keeping the quail in there, none had managed to do this.

We rescued Stumpy and put him back, but later on to our surprise we found another bird trapped in the same way. We put her back but she obviously didn't learn from the experience because later in the day we found her trapped in the same place.

After putting her back for the 2nd time, we decided to block off the gap by filling it with rolled up newspaper. We only blocked off the one side near the nest box because we thought it was unlikely that a bird would be sitting on the edge of the tray at the other side of the cage.

This turned out to be a mistake because about an hour or so later we found the same bird trapped for the 3rd time, but now on the other side of the tray. Both ends are now blocked off. You can see the rolled up newspaper in the top photo.