Button Quail

[ZooZoo]

Very interested in button quail. Does anyone here own any? How stikkish are they? What are they kept in? Any info would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Citychick]

I tried incubating about 40 eggs and 5 hatched. One died right away and one was splayed we tried saving it but had to put it down. The three that are left have been handled but did not tame well. VERY skittish. You have to have a screened cage not wire or bird cage. They fly straight up and do a popcorn thing every time they get startled. And can give them selves concusssions. That said ....they are very cute and make interesting pets to listen to and watch. Some people use them in aviaries to clean up the seed dropped by other birds. And there is alot of info online about temperment and care. Good Luck

 

[tiffanyh]

I grabbed 10 - 8 week old button quail at a livestock auction on a whim. I lost two early one, placed 4 and have 4 left. they are quite skiddish in my experience. But they are fun to watch. If you have an enclosed greenhouse/aviary or something of the sort, they are so cute to watch run around. Good bottom feeders in an aviary, mix well with finch and such. My are not very handlable, there is alot of info on them out there. Read up a bit. I can send off some eggs if youd like-- they do make the prettiest noises....

 

[MochaKat21]

I own to button quail! They run back and forth, making a lot of dust everywhere though. But they're really cute together. I keep them in a twenty gallon terrarium, and that's for only two of them

 

[shelleyd2008]

Button quail are almost impossible to tame. Some people have, but it's usually a case of a lone-hatchling. I have a rat manor cage that is divided (top and bottom) for some of my buttons; top part has 2 females, 3 males; bottom has 3 females, 4 males. I have some other buttons in a rubbermaid tote, I believe it's a 105 qt. tote. The top has 2 large 'windows' covered with hardware cloth; that pen has 3 females, 5 males. You can keep a pair (male/female, male/male, female/female) in a 10-gal. fish tank, but the more space you give the better. Mine were all hatched together, so they get along pretty well. I do have a feather picker in one of my pens though, if I ever figure out which one is doing it, I will get rid of that one!

 

[IwannaBEaMERMAID]

mine are very curious and come to the front of there cage to look at me, not skittish at all and they never fly

 

[shelleyd2008]

They do get used to you after a while, mine often walk on my hand when I'm feeding them. Cleaning their cages is another story, they don't fly too much, but they run all around their pens until I'm done with it.

 

[IwannaBEaMERMAID]

Quote:
yup yup

 

[Slater1995]

Quote:
I have 5 adults and several babies that I am hatching. My hatch ratio has been 5 birds per 6 eggs. They are pretty easy to hatch. You really don't have to do anything. I am shipping out about 18 hatching eggs to someone tomorrow. They are skidish birds but I have been told that if you keep them as a solitary bird, they can be tame. My adults I got from someone else so they were already wild. The babies are soooo cute. I handle them a lot to get them used to being handled. The babies we keep in a fish aquarium because they can get our of any cage we have. (They are the size of a bumble bee) The adults you can keep in a cage like a rabit or bird cage depending on how many you have. Fair warning. They lay an egg a day and I have more eggs in the bator than I want birds so I am now shipping
them for $12 a dozen plus shipping or I am trading for eggs. None of my buttons have died yet. All that hatched are alive an running.

As far as were to keep them, you should only keep them in an aquarium type of cage when they are babies. They should not be on wire bottoms so you need to get a wire cage with no bottom on it. They need lots of ventalation and if they are in an aquarium or a tote, the vapors and humitidty build up and can be toxic to the birds. The cages give lots of ventalation and keeps the cages fresh.

You can go to http://www.strombergschickens.com/stock/button_quail.php and http://brackenridgeranch.com/index.html



There is alot of good information here on raising the birds including cages just for buttons.


Hope this helps,
Teresa

 

[TexasAMquaileggs]

I've bought several 100 button quail eggs and the most out of 100 I've hatched out is 12 and that only happened ONCE. I found a breeder that I've just nOW email and asked her if I can spread the word about here. I've gotten 40+ eggs from here for the past 6 weeks and I've had no less than 23 hatch out. Shes sends 50-60 with each order. the eggs are very big and thick shelled eggs. I've only gotten very small eggs and very tin shelled eggs. I even had the eggs break from just trying to get the small eggs out of the egg trays only to have them break. My buttons that are old enuff are laying and their very nice sized eggs. If anyone wants to purchase button quail eggs let me know and i'll give you here email. I have a place on my website for people to add their website to my link page and i'm not stubborn on who gets their website on there. I'm so truly happy with this site and will help out anyone I can as I've found so much info from you very nice people. My website is www.TexasAMquaileggs.com and my dads is www.bjsbirds.com I greatky appreciate everyones advice and help. Thanks, and GOD BLESS