Calling all indoor quail keepers

[laughingdog]

are you feeding which brand/s of chick mash, or gambird mash? mash being the smallest type of commercial feed and like sand ect, and needed especially for young quail and bantams, and always for "button" quail (ive heard, or they can choke supposedly, as ive never had anything but courtnix quail and the chicks would choke on crumbles at times). heard medicated kind of chick feed will cause horrible stench from antibiotics ect in them, and one brand i used for chick feed would do that, and the new crumbles for layers i recently bought from same brand is doing same thing. supposedly game bird feed shouldnt have or be medicated whe you buy, but most big brand commercial chick feed is, but you can get unmedicated. the sand shouldnt be used or needed for them if theyre on commercial proccessed feeds, and can cause increased water consumption and dairia. id say just try to keep it drier in by them and get something so they cannot spill water if that is the case, or maybe they have cocidia or salmonilia or something that is making poop odd. a pic of setup and close up of stools may help.

 

[patharvey888]

Hello! I see your post was from 2009. Was your experience moving the quail inside? I'd love to read your article about it. I've never had quail before so I've been doing some research to see if I can keep 2 or 3 on my apartment deck.

 

[Shanti Marie]

Three of my newly hatched quail. The small one is a valley quail.

 

[laughingdog]

i originally kept my quial inside in an aviary with some other birds, till they started over flowing the aviay with chicks.. supposedly courtnix do not brood or care for their young, but one of the two original females (and all her babies after), would care for eggs and young, even though other would typically just drop were ever happened to be standing. i moved them outside much later on, and they loved eating the stink bugs and such after storm broke coop, so just fed when they came up and let them gradually go feral, which neighbors and local authurity oddly encouraged, because the quail were such lovers of fleas and ticks ect. and the native quail were extinct in that area to fill that niche. just kep them dry, and feet clean, feed them mash to crumbles at largest, and start a mealworm dry compost colony to treat and feed as suppliment easy. ive heard spray millet good for them and treat, but too fatty, and instead seem to have great luck with mealworms and fat content being just fine. id still love to have another aviary, and try to get the button quail and diamond doves ect.. as my courtnix cockatiels, budgies, courtnix quail ect, all did so great in old huge setup. let us know how you do. just using pine branches and needles for bedding nesting and shade and wind break seemed to do great for mine, had to keep on wire mostly with the one line, as they wouldnt perch or roost, or even clean feet right and fighting bumble foot and rot due to feces injuring feet wasnt worth the totally natural look, but hey had potted plants ect to get up on and rocks, if they wanted to with other broody more natural line.

i know hardly anything about any other type of quail, besides "button" quail, other knew had, and courtnix egg layer type quail, just to clarify.

 

[TehLizardKing]

I have three house quail, all hens. A Golden Coturnix, a Texas A&M, and an African Harlequin. The rest of their flock were slaughtered by a ferret and they never really recovered, so they now live inside. I feed them on chick crumb with added grit, and they live in a pretty massive ferplast guinea pig cage.

After scrutinising them closely, I discovered the reason why an egg had been disappearing every so often. The Harlequin, Lucky, had been collecting all of the eggs laid by the other two, and burying them, as if to keep them warm! three times a day, she would dig them up and turn them carefully, and them bury them again. I'm amazed she managed to complete task of such herculean proportions, seeing as she is small enough to fit snugly into a teacup! Animals never cease to amaze.

 

[jazzybio13]

Can I get an update on some of y'alls indoor keepers? I'm about to build my system this week and would like to get some input. Also, I have (locally) available to me a handful of types of coturnix, i'd like your input. Who's loudest, quietest, calmer, more handleable, flighty vs not...

Let me know what y'all think!

standard/jumbo Coturnix quail, texas a and m, and golden quail.

 

[laughingdog]

I now have Chinese red breasted blue painted, or "button" (name actually already was to a very rare different quail) quail. a pair of normal and a pair of silver. I'm feeding them on 28% gambird feed, mealworms, and white presso millet, offered also ground to crushed egg shells. hope I'm not doing too wrong on them, as female normal keeps nesting n laying huge eggs, and hatched four chicks that died in a day at most. I was keeping room really hot to humidify and heat for some young n sick birds kept a lot lower on floor for while. These quail poop horribly and have to for some reason always poop in water cup, that is kept off pine covered floor on and between a brick and side of tank, next to food cup that only gets shavings carried up into when empty, were water done soon after cleanest every to every other day.

anyone close to morristown tn that wants Japanese quail eggs, Chinese quail eggs, or wants to adopt silver Chinese pair, lemme know.

 

[jazzybio13]

Mmm. Have we found the square footage of 1 sq ft per bird to be enough for them? You think two hens could live in half that? Just brainstorming an indoor cage plan.

 

[laughingdog]

Id say two square feet to be safe, maybe more suggested by some of four square feet as can get territorial, but mine id say two should be fine.

 

[jazzybio13]

2sq ft/bird? Is that what you do with yours? Guess I'm wondering why everyone is saying one. And if any one had tried a couple of hens together in a half sq. Ft.