Hi all, I feel like I've been asking a lot of questions but every time I think I'm set more thoughts arise, so sorry for the spam.
My new baby Coturnix quail (first time quail owner) are now 5 days old. They came out of their incubator super fast and rearing to go this morning, it was beloved to see. But here's my question:
How much time do they require to sleep?
I'd have imagined it'd be in small intervals during the day, eg: whenever they get cold, they hide under mum, cosy up for a bit, then when warm enough go about foraging. But my guys are perhaps a little too cosy, because whenever they eat outside of their incubator (which I try to do every hour so they can learn to acclimate in the cold for brief 10 minute periods) they decide that snuggling with me is far more important.
I'm perfectly fine with that, and encourage it even. They climb onto my hand when offered and some have even taken a fancy to getting under the hem of my shirt to cuddle against my belly. But instead of simply warming up and then resuming to forage, they just remain there until forcibly removed by myself. Yesterday I sat there on the floor with them for two and a half hours and from the moment they were against my skin they had all fallen fast asleep and refused to move.
Cute? Absolutely. But I'm worried they're using what time they should be using to eat to sleep on me instead. My intention was to make them as tame as possible for the farm they'll be living at when they mature (perhaps the taming is going a little TOO well haha), but now whenever I let them out the incubator they forego any sort of want to forage to have a long nap on me instead.
Is this normal and I'm just overworrying like a newly tried mother, or would this be considered excess sleeping? I just worry they're not spending as much time eating as they could be since they're still all quite on the small side still.
(For additional information, I know the environment being cold is a big factor in this, we originally set up a brooder but both the heat lamp and the radiation panel are neither reaching adequate temperatures, so we've had to improvise between having the quail hang out in the incubator -with slightly lowered temperature settings - with food and water access, and letting them free roam my room whenever I let them out ((free roaming is kept short however just because it gets chilly)) )
My new baby Coturnix quail (first time quail owner) are now 5 days old. They came out of their incubator super fast and rearing to go this morning, it was beloved to see. But here's my question:
How much time do they require to sleep?
I'd have imagined it'd be in small intervals during the day, eg: whenever they get cold, they hide under mum, cosy up for a bit, then when warm enough go about foraging. But my guys are perhaps a little too cosy, because whenever they eat outside of their incubator (which I try to do every hour so they can learn to acclimate in the cold for brief 10 minute periods) they decide that snuggling with me is far more important.
I'm perfectly fine with that, and encourage it even. They climb onto my hand when offered and some have even taken a fancy to getting under the hem of my shirt to cuddle against my belly. But instead of simply warming up and then resuming to forage, they just remain there until forcibly removed by myself. Yesterday I sat there on the floor with them for two and a half hours and from the moment they were against my skin they had all fallen fast asleep and refused to move.
Cute? Absolutely. But I'm worried they're using what time they should be using to eat to sleep on me instead. My intention was to make them as tame as possible for the farm they'll be living at when they mature (perhaps the taming is going a little TOO well haha), but now whenever I let them out the incubator they forego any sort of want to forage to have a long nap on me instead.
Is this normal and I'm just overworrying like a newly tried mother, or would this be considered excess sleeping? I just worry they're not spending as much time eating as they could be since they're still all quite on the small side still.
(For additional information, I know the environment being cold is a big factor in this, we originally set up a brooder but both the heat lamp and the radiation panel are neither reaching adequate temperatures, so we've had to improvise between having the quail hang out in the incubator -with slightly lowered temperature settings - with food and water access, and letting them free roam my room whenever I let them out ((free roaming is kept short however just because it gets chilly)) )
