Button Quail Chicks!

[DK newbie]

I just had to share those little cuties with you, I'm so excited!

They're my first button chicks(if you don't count the one that died before I even saw it, described here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/971388/button-quail-incubating-own-eggs)

The mother incubated the eggs herself.
She lives in an aviary with her boyfriend and two other hens. She was very good at keeping the other hens away from her nest, chirping aggressively(don't know how else to describe it), whenever they came near. She also did this very strange thing I've never seen before - picking up a piece of bedding and placing it on her back so it ends up behind her, again and again. I think the intention was to cover the nest before leaving it to feed, but I'm not too sure about that and it certainly didn't work very well

I think someone forgot to tell her that button chicks are supposed to hatch on day 16, though. She started incubating 11 eggs on the 17th of May or before, her chicks hatched yesterday, 8th of June. I make that 21 days. But I got chicks!

9 of her 11 eggs hatched, I guess that makes both fertility and incubation skills quite good

I saw the first chicks in the middle of the afternoon on the 8th. The roo was lying beside the nest, until this moment he had also been told off whenever he got near. She stayed on the nest until the morning of the 9th, when the two of them left the nest with 8 chicks - I found no. 9 dead beside the nest, not completely dry, later.
Once they'd left the nest this was the first thing I saw:

"Us? Nooo - we have nothing of any interest to you. We are just lying here because we feel like it."

But eventually they moved and I got to see my chicks:

The cage beside them contains one of the other hens. I caught her pecking at the toes of the chickens as they were standing under their father yesterday, so she temporarily lost an extra bit of her freedom. The last hen is incubating eggs herself, so she is too busy to bother them.

The chicks are a little confused about the caged hen - they don't understand that she is not mom and try to get into the cage, like the one at the back here. But I reinforced it with(hopefully) baby quail safe net, so they shouldn't be able to get in there.
And then just one more pic:

The thing two of the chicks are standing by, is my baby quail waterer. It is a small plastic lid or something(not quite sure what it is. I was just looking through whatever we had and found it) with pebbles in it. It has the great disadvantage that I have to fill it every 30 minutes or so(which I can't do tomorrow, as I won't be home till 4 PM. I happened to be "sick" today

), but they can use it. I have a larger waterer too, but I haven't seen the chicks use it, I guess the edge is a little high to them.

Anyway, it hasn't been all joy. They live in an aviary with budgies and one of the flying terrorists got hold of a chick.
I have been observing them quite closely throughout the day, I knew there was a risk, but at first the budgies were scared of the chicks and flew away when they got too close. But eventually, I came out there one of the many-many times today, and the budgie was holding a chick to the ground, investigating it with its beak. I hope it didn't investigate the way it 'investigates' my fingers when I catch it..
I rushed in and picked up the chick, no holes in it but it was very apathetic. I held it in my hands a few minutes, then put it down near the mother. The mother called it and it managed to stumble to her. However, later she moved away and it wasn't able to follow, so it got quite chilled. It lived up while being warmed in the hands and was much less apathetic than right after the attack, when I put it back. I'm quite sure the mother will stay where she is now for the night, I hope that's enough to save the little guy.

The budgies got an immediate 'permission' not to use the inside of the aviary as long as there are baby quail there. But they should be fine with just the outside, this time of year.

Did I mention I was excited about my button chicks?

Well, I still am, so you might have to listen to me a few more times, till the worst wears off

 

[gamebirdsonly]

Thanks for sharing.

 

[GrandmaBird]

wtg nice little chicks and mom and dad are very pretty colored too!

 

[kyliedrew]

Ok im very new to this site and to quails one of my girls has eggs and is sitting on them for almost a week and a half now and is pretty cold were i am they are out side will the babies be ok or when they hatch do i need to bring them inside????

 

[DK newbie]

How cold is "pretty cold"? And is it dry where they are? Do they have shelter from wind and rain?
Mom and dad will cover the chicks, but the chicks have to eat and drink, so they can't be covered all the time. However, the average day temperature around here is around 15 C right now, so it is not exactly warm and my chicks are doing good. A couple of them died within the first 4 days, but the remaining 6 are getting feathers now and seem healthy. I don't think 10 C would be a problem either, but I suspect mortality will go up the colder it gets, as the chicks can handle shorter periods outside the warmth under their parents. A dry environment is supposed to be quite important too.
I would be careful about disturbing the hen when she has just had chicks. I have never tried moving a hen with chicks, but I think it would be quite stressful and she might forget to take care of the chicks until she settles down, which could be more harmful to them than a slightly cold environment.

 

[yellowherb]

This is a cool thread. I have at least 6 hens and as many roo's or +1 roo. All are in the bottom of my English budgie aviary(20ish budgies). I find my younger budgies are a bit too curious for their own good. I found one quail last week with his skin completely gashed on his head to the point his entire skull cap was showing I tried super gluing it back but he died 3 days later. I still am not sure what happened to him to cause it, although I did find a 3 1/2ft corn snake heading into the aviary next door.

What I didn't know and have never read about was dad staying with mom and helping out! Everything I read said dad would kill the little ones. Last few days all of my button hens are laying in the same corner. I find a pile of 6 eggs lol, I think they line up to take turns laying there. Since I have tons of button eggs incubating I was tempted to leave the eggs a day or two to see if anyone showed interest in incubation. your post gives me hope. Nothing cuter than little buttons

 

[DK newbie]

I see 4 main options for what happened to your roo.
1) Fighting with the other roos. I have never had more than one roo, but as far as I have read, if there are females around they are very likely to fight over them. In particular if there are not more hens than roos. If they have been together since hatching, it might reduce the risk though.
2) Something(another roo chasing it, the snake, whatever) scared it and it flew into the top of the aviary. If the aviary is more than 1½ meters high or so, it should loose enough speed not to get seriously hurt, before hitting the top though. But it might have hit a branch or something before loosing enough speed.
3) Naughty budgies. I have 13 budgies in my aviary. 12 are Australian, number 13 is supposed to be an English budgie, but is actually smaller than the others. However, interestingly enough, it behaves very differently from the Australian budgies, one of its deviations being a much higher interest in the quail. It was the "English" budgie that caught one of the chicks and it also chases and bites the adults from time to time, but as they are nearly the same size and the quail are faster on the ground, that doesn't have much impact. But you never know - it could have been a budgie that caught your roo.
4) Something got hold of its head from outside the aviary - whether this is possible, depends on the aviary though.

A few thoughts on what might prevent you from having success with chicks, even if one or more hens go broody and stays so:

Before the chicks even hatch, my main concerns would be:
1) Too many hens. If you have 6 hens, you might get 6 eggs a day. I have never seen a hen able to cover more than 15-ish eggs, and depending on how aggressive the hen is about her nest, the other hens might continue to lay eggs in it while she is incubating. Within a couple of days, it might be impossible for her to cover all eggs, and it is unlikely that she will always pick the same 15 eggs to cover, so they might get cold in turn, until all chicks have died.
2) Budgies. If the nest is not hidden, they might both chase the hen away from it and play with the eggs.

Once the chicks hatch, the roos would probably be my least concern, but with so many of them, some of them might prove to be a problem anyway.

The budgies would probably be my main concern - you will very likely need to have some strategy ready against them.

The other hens are a concern too. I have read about hens pecking the chicks of other hens to death, which was why I caged one of my hens, as soon as I saw it pecking at the toes of the chicks. However, I cannot say for sure that she would have harmed the chicks if I had let her be, as right now, all my 3 hens and my roo are taking care of my 6 chicks.
The hen that was incubating her own eggs when these chicks hatched, left her nest after a couple of days, to help taking care of the chicks. Their mother was not very happy about it and chased her around in the beginning, but she has accepted her now.
The hen that was in the cage, I let out today. Yesterday, I heard her calling the chicks when I fed her, so today I thought I'd see what happened if I let her out.
She showed no aggression towards the chicks, but she did still think their toes looked like worms and pecked at them a little. The chicks just thought she had found something interesting around their toes and moved back to see what it was.
The chicks showed no ability to tell the hens apart and immediately tried to get under her for warmth. At first, she tried to run away when the chicks tried to push themselves beneath her, but the distressed pipping of the chicks seemed to bother her and eventually she figured out that the pipping stopped if she just didn't run away. So, where as it might not be entirely voluntary, I now have 3 hens that will keep my chicks warm.

Her lack of aggression might have something to do with the fact that she spent 10 days looking at the chicks and seeing how the 3 others interacted with them. I'm not convinced it would have went as well if I had just left her with them from the beginning. And it still could go wrong.

But in conclusion, you and your future chicks are facing many challenges, but it might be possible. Good luck!

 

[yellowherb]

I have seen my budgies, the immature ones, catch a quail and hold it down. They haven't hurt one, but they have scared the quail. The aviary is 8x8 and sloping from 8 to 6ft tall. I see all the budgies on the ground foraging with the quail a lot and generally nothing happens. They seem to just ignore each other until a youngster gets rowdy.

Its possible my roo hit his head on a perch for the budgies. It's slightly possible he got his head caught somewhere, but I have looked all over the aviary and can not find any spaces he could have got stuck. I was baffled until I found the snake. Although my mesh is 1/4" square, I think the snake could have got in. The way the quails skin was open was a lot bigger than a budgie could bite it. It could have been caught by the snake and escaped causing the tiny snake teeth to rip the delicate flesh.

2 of my roo's are from a previous hatch 3 weeks before the others. But most of the quail have been together since birth.

 

[Malikshahzad]

I just had to share those little cuties with you, I'm so excited!

They're my first button chicks(if you don't count the one that died before I even saw it, described here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/971388/button-quail-incubating-own-eggs)

The mother incubated the eggs herself.
She lives in an aviary with her boyfriend and two other hens. She was very good at keeping the other hens away from her nest, chirping aggressively(don't know how else to describe it), whenever they came near. She also did this very strange thing I've never seen before - picking up a piece of bedding and placing it on her back so it ends up behind her, again and again. I think the intention was to cover the nest before leaving it to feed, but I'm not too sure about that and it certainly didn't work very well

I think someone forgot to tell her that button chicks are supposed to hatch on day 16, though. She started incubating 11 eggs on the 17th of May or before, her chicks hatched yesterday, 8th of June. I make that 21 days. But I got chicks!

9 of her 11 eggs hatched, I guess that makes both fertility and incubation skills quite good

I saw the first chicks in the middle of the afternoon on the 8th. The roo was lying beside the nest, until this moment he had also been told off whenever he got near. She stayed on the nest until the morning of the 9th, when the two of them left the nest with 8 chicks - I found no. 9 dead beside the nest, not completely dry, later.
Once they'd left the nest this was the first thing I saw:

"Us? Nooo - we have nothing of any interest to you. We are just lying here because we feel like it."

But eventually they moved and I got to see my chicks:

The cage beside them contains one of the other hens. I caught her pecking at the toes of the chickens as they were standing under their father yesterday, so she temporarily lost an extra bit of her freedom. The last hen is incubating eggs herself, so she is too busy to bother them.

The chicks are a little confused about the caged hen - they don't understand that she is not mom and try to get into the cage, like the one at the back here. But I reinforced it with(hopefully) baby quail safe net, so they shouldn't be able to get in there.
And then just one more pic:

The thing two of the chicks are standing by, is my baby quail waterer. It is a small plastic lid or something(not quite sure what it is. I was just looking through whatever we had and found it) with pebbles in it. It has the great disadvantage that I have to fill it every 30 minutes or so(which I can't do tomorrow, as I won't be home till 4 PM. I happened to be "sick" today

), but they can use it. I have a larger waterer too, but I haven't seen the chicks use it, I guess the edge is a little high to them.

Anyway, it hasn't been all joy. They live in an aviary with budgies and one of the flying terrorists got hold of a chick.
I have been observing them quite closely throughout the day, I knew there was a risk, but at first the budgies were scared of the chicks and flew away when they got too close. But eventually, I came out there one of the many-many times today, and the budgie was holding a chick to the ground, investigating it with its beak. I hope it didn't investigate the way it 'investigates' my fingers when I catch it..
I rushed in and picked up the chick, no holes in it but it was very apathetic. I held it in my hands a few minutes, then put it down near the mother. The mother called it and it managed to stumble to her. However, later she moved away and it wasn't able to follow, so it got quite chilled. It lived up while being warmed in the hands and was much less apathetic than right after the attack, when I put it back. I'm quite sure the mother will stay where she is now for the night, I hope that's enough to save the little guy.

The budgies got an immediate 'permission' not to use the inside of the aviary as long as there are baby quail there. But they should be fine with just the outside, this time of year.

Did I mention I was excited about my button chicks?

Well, I still am, so you might have to listen to me a few more times, till the worst wears off

Thanks for sending all details of your quails chicks, i also have quails but still no eggs, can you tell me exactly which breed and colour of quails you have becuz i want that quails they hatched their eggs

 

[DK newbie]

They are wild colored button quail.
They actually hatched chicks tonight for the first time this year but I've lost count of how many times total. They only got 4 this time and one ended up getting stuck behind something in a corner, so 3 survivors. I guess either the hen was laying on partially old eggs - the eggs haven't been collected for ages so there were MANY eggs in the aviary - or their fertility has dropped due to them getting older.

In my experience buttons go broody pretty easily as long as you provide them with a decent sized enclosure, a stress free environment and nicely covered places to nest - I place spruce branches in the corners and the vast majority of the eggs are laid behind these.