If you keep them in cages and pens, give them some place to get off of the wire occasionally as wire is very hard on their tiny feet. Some people keep their Quail in pens or cages on wire. Make sure nothing can pull this tray out at night, so put a locking system on the tray. Also, you do not want poop falling out and piling up beneath your pens or cages as this will only attract predators from the smell. So keep something as a barrier beneath the floor of the wire. Coons or Skunks can grab entire toes or feet and rip them off. If your pen or Rabbit Hutch has a wire bottom, you WILL need a catch pan or some sort of barrier so that critters can not reach up and grab the Quail toes that might be hanging out. Some people keep their Quail secure areas such as a shed or an enclosed porch, in which case the wire on the Hutch will work as is as long as these areas are safe from the critters. If you are keeping your hutch outside, you will need to cover this wire with hardware cloth. If you use a Rabbit Hutch, many of them come with 1 by 1 inch or so wire on the sides and front. You can use 1/4 or 1/2 inch, either one will work fine. You also want to keep out rats, mice, snakes, weasels and other unwanted critters. It can be chewed apart, torn, Hawks or Owls can dive through it, paws can reach right through the large holes.
Just make sure to never use chicken wire on anything. They also love to fly and become quite flight conditioned on their own. If you only have a couple pairs and a very large aviary, you can sometimes get away with keeping the two pairs together as long as you give them plenty of brush piles to hide from each other and do their breeding thing. Because they are kept in pairs during the breeding season, I find that using those extra large dog crates make excellent cages for the pairs and do fit nicely in a large aviary. The New World Quail being as hyper and skittish as they are will do much better in aviary style set ups. I like to give Quail a more natural environment and offer them as much room as possible. I am a big fan of Rabbit Hutches and Aviaries. There are battery type Quail cages you can order on line or even build cages yourself. Think like a predator and build it sturdy and safe. Build, rebuild and over build your facilities. So don't set up an "all you can eat Quail Buffet" in your backyard. You will be drawing in predators from the next county over! Well, maybe not that far, however somewhere back in these predators ancient memories they have eaten wild Quail at some point and will come snooping around for a meal day and night. The very day you put your Quail out into their new home, predators are going to smell your birds from miles away, I kid you not. But no matter how you keep them, put a lot of thought into keeping them secure from predators. You can even keep them in small Chicken coops with an attached run. You can keep them in cages, pens, Rabbit Hutches or even aviary style. Your Quail will need to be kept safe, secure and dry at all times.
(This section pertains to all Quail except Button Quail which I will cover later.)