Buttons vs Coturnix

[joe125]

post removed.

 

[Afleetalex]

Thanks for all the replies guys! I still might want buttons but I guess I'll just have to accept that they aren't cuddly birds.

 

[mhwc56]

Quote:
Buttons aren't even really touchable .. their feathers will fall out as an escape response same as a lizards' tail falling off does. and they actually find it painful to be handled....

 

[millebantam]

Forget touching them. I'm not so sure that they even like you looking at them. Their hobbies include eating each other, and bouncing their heads off the top of the pen. And the brave souls who colony breed them usually have a couple of their little soldiers leave on a stretcher every day. Too bad they're too small to eat cuz they would be easy to pluck. Just throw about 40 of them in a single pen and in a couple of days, most of them would be nekkid.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Quote:
I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. I rarely have any fighting with my birds and when I did have them in groups I never lost any.

 

[millebantam]

Yeah, I probably don't know what I'm talking about since I spent about 4 years breeding them in just about every configuration imaginable. I've kept as many as 250 of them at a time, in a variety of pens. I have witnessed just about every behavioral pattern and tendency that they are capable of. The fact is that overall they are basically useless little birds that are probably the worst of all domestic gamefowl when it comes to human interaction. There are always a couple of exceptions here and there, but the fact is that they despise humans, and do best as monogamous pairs to circumvent aggression among themselves when kept in groups. Other than being pretty to look at, their only "value" to the keepers is the sale of hatching eggs to unsuspecting buyers who believe that they are different than they really are. As soon as someone mentions their extremely flighty behavior, or aggressive tendencies, it's not unusual for an egg seller to defend them, and perform damage control.

Exaggeration? Hmm...........maybe just a tad. Accuracy?...............pretty much.

Quote:
I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. I rarely have any fighting with my birds and when I did have them in groups I never lost any.

 

[mhwc56]

Quote:
I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. I rarely have any fighting with my birds and when I did have them in groups I never lost any.


maybe it just takes a certain type of person to appreciate Buttons?
i have 5 individual bonded pair . Two of those pair are fairly calm...
BTW anyone who is interested ,i'm posting 3 pair for sale in the any other birds section...

 

[Robo]

Quote:
I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. I rarely have any fighting with my birds and when I did have them in groups I never lost any.

 

[shelleyd2008]

I'm starting to think that the ones who have the biggest problems with aggression/pecking/flightiness are the breeders who have tons of them. Maybe it's because they have so many they aren't able to 'mess with' them much?

Right now I have 12 pairs and 7 bachelors. Before, when they were in group pens, I had a total of I think 15 birds. I've only got a few of my original flock left, some have died and some have been rehomed. But the ones I do have (2 hens and 4 cocks) are much less flighty than the 'new' ones I have now. I've also noticed that certain 'lines' seem to be more skittish/aggressive than others. As I said before, I rarely have aggression problems with my birds, but I've gotten eggs/birds from other people and had serious problems with aggression in those, even as young (5-6 weeks old) birds.

I think there's a lot of variables with button quail, but to come off and say that ALL of them are aggressive or seriously flighty is simply not true.

 

[Robo]

You are right, different lines are more aggressive in my experience too. Most of them are aggressive and skittish though.