Button Quail Hatch

[CallsignSix]

Hooray! Against apparently all odds, my femal Quail decided to brood on some eggs after nearly a year of ignoring them.

Surprisingly, she stayed on them and they just hatched last night. Pretty cool, and my kiddos are ecstatic about it. Which leads me to my question...

When should I start supervising some interaction between my kids and the new buttons? I want the new buttons to be comfortable around the kids so I want them to interact, but I obviously don't want to do any damage to them. My kids are old enough to be gentle, but I don't want to do anything rash. Any advice? Thanks in advance.

-Sven

 

[nchls school]

Hooray! Against apparently all odds, my femal Quail decided to brood on some eggs after nearly a year of ignoring them.

Surprisingly, she stayed on them and they just hatched last night. Pretty cool, and my kiddos are ecstatic about it. Which leads me to my question...

When should I start supervising some interaction between my kids and the new buttons? I want the new buttons to be comfortable around the kids so I want them to interact, but I obviously don't want to do any damage to them. My kids are old enough to be gentle, but I don't want to do anything rash. Any advice? Thanks in advance.

-Sven

I have had female button quail hatch chicks in my science class many times. The big concern here is to not upset the hen overly much. My recommendation is to wait a week before picking them up. In the mean time have your children try getting them to eat out of their hands. Success depends on the hen and how tame she is. Good luck and have fun.

 

[CallsignSix]

I have had female button quail hatch chicks in my science class many times. The big concern here is to not upset the hen overly much. My recommendation is to wait a week before picking them up. In the mean time have your children try getting them to eat out of their hands. Success depends on the hen and how tame she is. Good luck and have fun.

Thanks for the response and advice. The mother hen is not very tame at all. We got her in bad shape from a poor breeder so I am worried about stressing her out. I'll take it slow then.

 

[DK newbie]

In my experience, it is rather easy to tame even adults to the level where they might not want to be touched, but will eat from your hand and be calm around you. All it takes is hand feeding them a few bugs, they can't resist the movement of the bugs even if they are in your hand and doing it a few times will make them quite calm. One of my 3 hens is tame to the level where she will ignore me touching her, because there is a piece of string on my jacket she wants to eat.
Congrats on the chicks! I just had button chicks for the first time as well, they are 5 days old today. I have been handling some of them when they've gotten too far away from their parents and the mother seems to be okay with that - or at least she doesn't attack me like a chicken hen would have. But in general I don't expect to be handling them much at all and as this is my first time as well, I don't have any advice on when they will be sturdy enough.
Have any pictures for us to see of your chicks?

 

[CallsignSix]

In my experience, it is rather easy to tame even adults to the level where they might not want to be touched, but will eat from your hand and be calm around you. All it takes is hand feeding them a few bugs, they can't resist the movement of the bugs even if they are in your hand and doing it a few times will make them quite calm. One of my 3 hens is tame to the level where she will ignore me touching her, because there is a piece of string on my jacket she wants to eat.
Congrats on the chicks! I just had button chicks for the first time as well, they are 5 days old today. I have been handling some of them when they've gotten too far away from their parents and the mother seems to be okay with that - or at least she doesn't attack me like a chicken hen would have. But in general I don't expect to be handling them much at all and as this is my first time as well, I don't have any advice on when they will be sturdy enough.
Have any pictures for us to see of your chicks? 

Thanks for the response! I have tried a few times with the mama, but she wants nothing to do with being tamed. She ignores all food near her, even wriggling meal-worms, if anyone is anywhere near her, no matter how long we've been holding her. I'll have to get some pics. How are yours doing?

 

[DK newbie]

I have never been holding my hens, except for a couple of times when I had to move them - perhaps your hen has become extra suspicious from being held? Being prey animals, I don't assume they are likely to think that being held is very nice, unless they have been used to it from they were chicks.
The first couple of times I fed mine bugs, I gave them the bugs in a small dish, while I stayed right beside the dish. As soon as they saw the bugs moving, they were right there and didn't care about me at all - I think I could have fed them from my hands right away. And they came from a pet shop where they lived in small flocks on the floor, below all sorts of other birds, I doubt they've had much human contact, but I don't know where the pet shop gets them from.

My chicks are doing very well, they are beginning to get feathers on their wings. I fed them ants(caught in our hedge where they were farming greenflies) for the first time today, that was a hit ^^
I didn't hand feed them though, but that was mainly because I don't like the thought of having ants crawling all over me

One of the chicks ran right out of the door when I opened it to give them the ants, and it didn't pay much attention to me, when I pushed it back inside - the adults at least usually try to avoid my hands.