button quail info please!!!

I'm looking for as much info on button quail as possible i'll be getting the eggs soon and am so excited i'm all ready for the eggs, Just not the chicks themselves. I would like to know more on wut i need to do for them to keep them healthy and happy!

Anybody?? lol:/

Well, I am certainly no expert and I am sure you can google button quail to get some more info but here it goes.
I bought 5 adults from a byc'er and have LOVED them! They started to lay shortly after I got them and I have since hatched out 7 babies. They are sooooooo tiny. I feed the babies chick starter that I run through the food processor. I also feed the adults regular chick starter with a ground human calcium/vit d pill for the hens. I also put spray millet in there and parakeet seed for a little something different. They also LOVE to dirt bathe so I keep a container of sand in there for them. They make a big mess with it but they are so happy when they are doing it The chicks I use a baby quail waterer and the adults use a regular chick waterer. Some people use cage bird waterers - like for a cockatiel. I brood mine in a 10 gal aquarium and then they are moved to a small wired cage when they are feathered. That I think was at about 4-6 weeks.
I incubate my quail eggs with my chicken eggs...
Oh gosh, I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. I'm sure there will be lots more people on here that can add to this

Good luck with them!

PS Most of the time you have to keep them seperated into pairs or trios. I have been lucky I guess because mine get along very well and I have had no fighting or feather picking.

Well, since youre getting eggs...For a brooder the best thing I have found for mine is an old aquarium. Then they dont squeeze through or get stuck anywhere, and it helps keep the smell down. The top you can use cloth or netting more easily, too.

Button quail, once they hatch, need to eat and drink in less than 12 hours after hatching. They require a high protein feed, also, non medicated. Game bird starter , if you can find it. If not, non-medicated turkey grower.


I hope this helps!

Anybody else? I need all the info i can get. This is my first time hatching! Im so excited! I also have six duck eggs that will hatch about a week after my buttons.

The eggs hatch in 14-16 days or so the only one I have had hatch so far hatched on like day 18 though. THEY are TINY when they hatch tiny tiny tiny


That probe you can see in there is about an inch long and those are very small banty eggs.



I cover the wire in my bator with the shelf liner stuff so they dont hurt there little legs which is possible.
I feed my baby quail ground up game bird starter. I started off with ground up UNmedicated chick starter and cat food till I could track down the game bird stuff. they are like regular chicks with everything else just small

If your chicks are hatching that late your temp should be adjusted up. All styrofoam incubators say to incubate at 99, but this does not account for the significant temperature variances inside the incubator and the actual temp used (whether hova or lg or other styrofoam or still-air incubator) is 102.5 .
Temps below this can lead to abnormal growth (which ios usually fatal) or low hatch rates, delayed hatches, etc.

I had one of my lg's still hatching late at this temp and actually have to run that particular one at 105 to get proper hatch rates and times.

You live and learn. I had a couple people on here and the older gentleman down the roadwho has had chickens since the dawn of time (or so he says) teach me these things.

Good luck on your hatching!!

Quote:
The temps also depend on where you are taking temps in the bator. 102.5 is for the top of the egg, not the bottom. If you are taking the temp at the center level of the egg, it should be as close to 100 as it can get.

And buttons normally take 15 days to hatch, but they can take up to 18 days and still not be late. I have also had some hatch on day 14. But 18 days with buttons is still considered 'on time'.

But as you said, you need to adjust accordingly to how your hatches go. It also depends on if you have a still or forced air incubator, as the temp on one side of a still air could be very different than the temps on the opposite side, or in the middle for that matter.

To the OP---you need to make sure you keep your humidity fairly high, like 45% at least during incubation. Button quail eggs are very tiny, and they dry out quickly. I try to keep mine at a steady 50% during incubation, and at least 65% for the hatch

Even if you use the quail water base, you still need to add pebbles or something in the base so the buttons don't drown. They can fit in the quail water bases!! I use parakeet waterers for my babies, they can't fit in those!

I don't grind my feed, don't have a grinder, and doing it by hand is time-consuming. What I do is to wet the feed, just enough to make it moist. Keep it in the refridgerator so it doesn't spoil, and stir it everytime you need some. Keeping it uncovered in the fridge will also help it to dry out some, and stirring it will make sure the food is teeny tiny. I actually do this for all quail babies, until they are big enough to go outside. Wetting the food cuts down on waste as well, since they will kick it out to look for the smaller pieces. If it is wetted, all the pieces are small, so no kicking

I agree that a fish aquarium works well as a brooder, I also use a small styrofoam cooler. It is best to keep the buttons on wire after they hatch, it will help keep their feet straight, or straighten out curled toes, which almost always seems to happen with them! Use the 1/4" wire, it's the smallest.

Buttons should start out in the brooder with temps of about 98 degrees. This will deter piling, which is the #1 reason people lose baby quail. They need more heat, so they pile up on each other. The ones on the bottom get squished. You can then lower the temp 5-10 degrees weekly afterwards, so they, at 4 weeks old, no longer have any heat. They don't need it if you wean them off it fast enough. The faster you wean them from their light, the faster they will feather out.

Like someone else has said, baby quail need to have food and water within 12 hours of hatching. I have put food and water inside the hatcher before, if I have had a big hatch. Other than that, you can snatch the babies out when there is a lull in action, but it is very hard to see a pip on a button egg, so you need to be careful. You also should try to have your hatcher on the floor, buttons hatch out running, and will hop right out of the bator! Otherwise, you need some kind of a 'shield' to keep them from running over the sides.

I can't think of anything else right now, but if I do, I'll post back

I'm going to throw my two cents in here for what it's worth. Only because I've hatched a lot of button quail this year and through trial and error have found what works best for me.

First of all, I'm using one of those cheap styrofoam still air incubators. Not the best incubator but it's been doing a fine job now that I have it down.

The thermometer in your incubator needs to be at about the same level as the top of your eggs. I've seen some people say to wash the eggs before you incubate them. I don't recommend this at all as you're washing the protective barrier off the eggs allowing bacteria to possibly infect the eggs during incubation.

Get some of that soft rubber type shelf liner, the type that kind of woven and can breathe and line the bottom of the incubator completely with it. You don't want your buttons little legs to fall through the wire.

Very important, place your incubator in an area where the temperature of the room stays fairly constant. Room temperature fluctuation will have an effect the temperature in the incubator. You want to keep the temp as constant as possible. I have a large walk in closet off my master bath and that's where I keep my incubators.

Set your incubator up 24 hours in advance to give you plenty of time to get the temperature right.

I don't have anything to measure the humidity in my bators, but what I do is I keep the water reservoirs in the bottom filled at all times and I also set a coffee cup full of water in the bator. This seems to work perfectly.

As for temperature. I now set my temperature at 99.5. It's been my experience that hatching at temperatures above 100 results in weaker chicks and more foot and leg problems. If you set at 99.5 you pretty much eliminate the possiblility of the temp spiking too hot. Falling a little below 99.5 for short times doesn't hurt them. But spikes over 100 aren't good. Trust me on this one. When I started I was told to set the temp at about 101 degrees. This didn't work for me at all. Many of the chicks were weak and had leg and feet issues and died though at the time I didn't know why.

The first couple of batches of Button quails I hatched I used an automatic egg turner. My hatch rate was only a terrible 10 to 20 percent. For the following hatches, I removed the turner and turned the eggs by hand. You can mark the eggs if you want to, but it's not needed. Lay the eggs on their sides in the middle of the incubator and when you turn them just lay your hand over them and gently roll them. Do this at least twice a day. Three times is better.

After hatching, leave the chicks in the incubator as long as possible! If you take them out too early you will have problems. I now leave mine in the incubator for as long as 24 hours and the result is stronger chicks, ready to eat and drink, and a lower mortality rate.

For a brooder, I use either a 10 gallon aquarium or a plastic rubbermaid container, lined with the same shelf liner so they don't slip and hurt their legs, with a brooder lamp over them. This is the trickiest part for me. Set the light over only half the brooder and make sure it never gets over 95 degrees under the light. You will have to adjust the light up and down many times to get this right so start BEFORE you place the chicks in it until you get it right.

For the first few days I use only a very shallow lid from a water bottle or jar or whatever you can find. Make sure to check it often to make sure they always have fresh water as it can evaporate quickly. I feed them game bird starter that I throw in my blender and blend to a fine consistency and at first I feed them directly on the floor, again, because it is so easy for them to throw their little legs out, I'm afraid they would slip in a dish and hurt themselves.

Since I have been hatching and brooding my buttons this way, I have not had a single button with leg or foot problems. Whereas before, I would have at least two in every hatch. Sometimes more.

As others have said, tap your finger lightly in the food and near the water to teach them to eat and drink.

Sometimes you will get a baby or two who don't quite get the eating drinking part down right away. Water is more important than food at this point. If the baby won't drink on it's own, gently dip it's little beak in the water a few times to make sure it gets some water. Do this a few times a day until it starts drinking on it's own. And keep trying to coax it into eating by gently pecking the food with your finger to mimic a hen pecking the ground. As long as you keep the baby hydrated, he should begin eating in a day or two. It doesn't take long for a chick to die of dehydration.

I've had chicks who were close to death, to the point that they would fall over on their backs and not be able to get up and walk and managed to save them by forcing them to drink. So don't give up on any of them.

Good luck. I got up this morning to a bunch of new button chicks in the incubator. And they hatched right on time.