Coturnix's Native Habitat?

[LavenderCrow]

Hello! I'm considering setting up an aviary for my coturnix, and I was wondering... What plants exist in their native/natural habitat that are SAFE for them to be around? I'd like to make just a small aviary for the rarer colored quail I plan on showing/breeding/keeping as pets, but I want it to mimic how it would be for them in the wild, minus predators. Of course, any plants that are not naive to my area will be planted in containers and kept from going to seed so they don't disturb the existing ecosystem. (Someone had suggested releasing them in my area, but they aren't native here and I dislike releasing animals...)

Any insight would be great!

 

[Guineagang]

I dont think they have a natural habitat since they have been domesticated for a very long time.

 

[LavenderCrow]

Hmm. I would imagine some still exist in the wild somewhere. I know they're native to Japan and live in areas like meadows and rice paddies, but hardly anywhere on the internet states what kind of plants are in those areas.

 

[dc3085]

The largest populations of wild coturnix exist is russia and northern china. Coturnix are migratory birds so they divide their time between seasonal habitats. There are still existing reintroduced populations in western europe too as far as I know, although it's hard to find much written about them.

Population data on wild coturnix
http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=195

Differences in behavior between wild and domestic coturnix
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19439621

Hybridization of coturnix coturnix with coturnix japonica in western europe
http://www.ibg.uu.se/digitalAssets/177/177016_3huisman-jisca-arbete.pdf
http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0009451

 

[LavenderCrow]

I wasn't aware that they migrated to Russia. Thank you for those links, very informative! I think what I might do is just build an aviary and order some meadow grasses, possibly ornamental. Are there any plants Coturnix shouldn't be around?