Finding lighting for my birds(button quail) - help!

[Rozzie]

I'm less concerned about them laying eggs than I am Vitamin D absorption / production. I'm worried about their little bodies staying healthy. I know that with some types of animals, it doesn't matter if Vitamin D is added to their food. They can't process / use it without the right types of lights.

What I'm wondering, I guess, is if birds are the same way. I've never had indoor birds until recently and am concerned that long term indoor bird keeping could have a negative effect. I'd like these birds to stay healthy for "years" not weeks or months.
Hopefully I'll have time to read up on this eventually.

 

[CatJane0x0]

At least I am not the only one then that isn't overly sure in this area, lol
If I just had more natural light coming into their room I would be happier. They seem to be thrilled enough with the GE daylight bulbs, yes...a little more perky. Silly things. (I like how the room looks lit with them, too!) I can't help but wonder the difference in the types in lighting, though. I have been breeding mine and now it is break time, but I really want to try different lighting with certain pairs nest year. My eyes are always sensitive to certain lights and I hate that, but the light they have now seems nice. Christmas lights sound like a neat idea. I always have them and the purple Halloween ones up in certain areas of the house. I bet they might like some, too.

Good idea!


Mrs. Fluffy Puffy -- I worry about keeping my buttons warm as well. Especially since it will be my first winter with them. At least they get the warmest room in the house.

Also, I figure as long as my cockatiels are comfortable, they will be too. They're just so tiny...it's hard not to fuss over them.
I wish I lived in a warmer state where I could have an outdoor aviary.

 

[Rozzie]

My buttons have a space heater. HOWEVER, it's a good, new one that is reasonably reliable. It's also on surge protector. It's in a place where nothing can fall on it or knock it over. Nothing bigger than a button quail ever goes in that room, except for me (and rarely, my son who is old enough NOT to knock it over).

I still monitor their temp closely. If necessary, I can move them into the basement for Jan & Feb. I may do so but would rather not!

 

[Sushi]

I've been topping up the amount of protein in the layer rations that I give to my buttons with powdered soymilk. Its basicly just soy flour fortified with vitamin D3. This is the one that I buy at the Bulk Barn by where I live. You will have to check the ingredients on any you buy to make sure its in there. You could also buy bird vitamins. Its expensive from a petstore, but cheap if you buy poultry vitamins from a feed store. The only problem is that you usually have to buy enough to treat 225 liters of water. I have a scale that measure into .01 of a gram, so I weigh out 1 gram of the vitamins and add it to 2.25L of water, roughly 10 cups.

It is vitamin D3 that the birds need. Its found in eggs & insects. Vitamin D thats found in plants is in the D2 form, which birds can't utilize without sunlight. The UV light turns D2 into D3.

Here's an article if you want to go into more depth on it.
http://www.ladygouldianfinch.com/features_vitamind.mgi

 

[CatJane0x0]

I wonder if I can locate some of that out here. I'd never heard of powdered soymilk until now to be honest, lol.

I'll have to check around. I'll read the article you posted after I post this.

I try to feed the egg shells back to my buttons and also toss in chicken egg shells as well as the laying time lessens. I hope to start raising either wax worms or meal worms soon. Last time I bought some from Walmart they were all crispy and dead in there.

The buttons still went to town with them at least. Besides wiggly bugs, the buttons seem to love baby oatmeal I noticed.

Thanks for the info!

 

[Sushi]

I hadn't heard of powdered soy milk either until I saw the bin at Bulk Barn. They also sell soy flour. The only difference seems to be that the soy flour costs a bit more, and the soymilk powder has the vitamin D3 added. I don't think you have this chain in the US. I like the way they have things set up. The bins have the nutritional information and the ingredients as well as the price on the bin. On some of the bins they have a pad of tearsheets with the instructions for some items (ie water ratio to use, how long to cook etc), info about what its used for and occasionally a recipe. The place is a god send for people with food issues like gluten intolerance. It's also a great place for hard to find stuff. Its where I finally found teff flour to make injera with.

Also I should mention that game bird feed & layer rations usually already has adequate amounts of vitamin D3 in it. The reason I use the soymilk powder is to top up the protein levels in layer rations. Layer feed is usually about 16% protein, and buttons need about 25%. I just picked up a bag of turkey starter today, but realized when I got home that its medicated. The turkey starter is 24% protein. I was going to use it for now to feed my chickens as well, but now I have to go look up info on the antibiotic in it and what it will do to the eggs. Grrr.... I might be stuck buying 50 lb bags of 2 different types of feed after all even though I only have a small flock of tiny chickens. (Seramas and one bantam frizzle)

Crickets are good to feed buttons and you can gutload them for added nutritional value. As for mealworms, I'd have to check again but I think they tend to be high in fat and not have much other nutritional value. Although, buttons love them and they do help in taming them. Over the summer I was picking out all the slugs from my garden and giving them to my birds.

Baby oatmeal is good but look for the one that says to add formula rather than water. The one you mix with water has milk in it already and it gives my birds diarrhea. I just had to clean the bottoms of my 2 new serama babies. Their vents were pasted shut. I had a button chick die from that a couple weeks ago. It was a slate one too. I have been trying to cross breed for a while now to get that colour. I'm still kicking myself over that.

 

[Hoppelchen]

Quote:
I have a similar problem with orchid fertiliser -- I don't need as much in one go. So, I mix up the recommended amount and fill ice cube bags with it and then use the cubes to fertilise, which is much easier than dunking.

Also, I don't have a scale of that accuracy, so providing that it's possible to premix the additive in a high concentration with normal or perhaps distilled water , the way I would do this is:

1. Find out how much fluid my cube bags/tray take. Say I want 1/2 litre of solution to use every time I need it.

Suppose I have 20 cubes of 10ml each and the additive needs to added at a rate of 0.5 gm per 1 litre of water. I now weigh out 5 gms on the scale, dilute/dissolve the additive with 200ml of water and freeze the lot in my ice cube tray.

You can of course do this easier with the plastic ice cube bags, if you can freeze 10 bags of 200 cubes, in this case you can weigh out 50gms and dissolve in 2 liters of water and it should be reasonable accurate.

2. I ask a friend to double check my calculation, even if I am totally sure that I have it right

3. To portion up, I weigh 490gm of water, add one 10ml cube, and I have an instant mix ready.

 

[goodheart101]

I have 18 cages of button quails...I use the energy saving compact fluorescent bulbs in some of the cages, some I have small long strip fluorescent lights, some I have Christmas light in the tubes, I have them all on timers, they are on for 12 hours a day and I seem to have happy buttons. They are always chattering away. But then who knows they might be muttering profanities at me....But I just like to have the extra lighting because it is easier to see them, and they seem to be more perky when the lights come on, they chatter away and play. Then when the lights go off they settle down together for the night. I heard they should have at least 5 hours of total darkness in a 24 hour period. In one of my cages it came with an upper deck and a ladder. I put a cloth over the ladder and they love running up the cloth and sliding down the cloth slide. They have a big cage but they do that all day long. They run up it, turn around, and slide down it. It looks so funny. It is against a large mirror and they like to watch themselves in the mirror doing it. And I have a clock that plays short verses of Christmas chimes that goes off every hour and some are getting pretty good at jingle bells. You can recognize them singing jingle bells even when the clock is not playing it. They can be real fun to watch.

 

[Stellar]

I have the flourescent lighting, vitamin D lamps, the birds eat right...they are in pairs so they are housed right... I give them artificial lighting but I let them them have breaks once a while. They can lay every day of the year but it is not good for their little bodies. Button quail can live up to 7 years if not longer. If under lighting and making them pop out eggs all year round, their lifespan can go down to just a year.

 

[CatJane0x0]

How many hours a day during the break periods do you keep on the lights? I have been trying to get that part set straight for mine for good routine.