I feed quail (3 wk old to adults) to my retics, yellow anaconda, Amazon tree boa, rock pythons, and amethystine. I also feed them chickens, pigeons, rats, mice, and rabbits (pinkies thru 12 lbs). All prey is frozen for 30 days prior to feeding to lessen the chance of parasites (vet's idea). Usually the concerns people have with poultry are due to nutrition and parasite transmission. So far my animals fecal exams come back clear year after year so I feel that as long as the poultry dealer keeps their birds under good hygienic conditions and you freeze the prey for a minimum of 30 days prior to feeding you should be fine. The second issue is that of nutrition. This has more to do with feeding young birds which have a lower nutritional value, so especially with chicks you should make sure that they are 30% or less of your animals total diet. A better option is 3-week old to adult quail, for smaller snakes and chickens for larger snakes. The nutrition value of these birds will be much higher than that of newly hatched birds (just like pinkie mice are poor nutrition sources when compared to adult or even hopper mice). Also, I would make sure to have at least some mammalian prey in your snakes diet. Rabbits, and rodents still make up at least 50% of my snakes diets (with the exception of the amethystine who refuses mammals and eats only birds [chickens, quail, pigeons]). Lastly, do not believe the nonsense regarding the smell of poultry vs. rabbits/rodents when it is passed as fecal matter. In my experience, there is very little difference, smell wise, and fecal from bird prey can be much more compact and less "messy".
Hope this helps,
Shane
