Keeping Female Button Quail Together?

[omegacactus]

Hello Everyone,

I am looking into getting some button quail and this will be my first time keeping quail.
I have read through all the stickies on here (a lot of good info, thanks guys!) as well as other forum posts and other websites, so I think I have a good basic understanding of how to take care of them. I'm getting the button quail as pets, however I would like the few eggs they lay to feed to my kitties

My only question currently that I hope someone can answer is, can a few female button quail be kept together?
I don't want any males, just females. I read that they are monogamous, so just 1 male for 1 female - but if I have no males around at all, can a trio of females be kept peacefully? They would be kept in a cage roughly 4 feet by 2 feet, so hopefully enough room for them to spread out!

Thanks!

 

[Stellar]

THey are really happy with their male mates. It is cute to watch the males take care of their mate. I have a lot of extra males if you are looking to pair up your girls.

 

[omegacactus]

Thanks for the info

I don't want to have any fertilized eggs, so that's why I'd want to have only females.

Was just checking if a few females living in a large enough cage would be fine together, or if they would fight despite not having a male around.

Thank you for the offer on males - if I decide later that I want to have eggs to hatch I'll be sure to check with you

 

[Stellar]

Females can be as testy as boys with territory but you can try housing them together and see if they get along.

 

[FRlEDeggs]

Yes you can

Just make sure they are not stressed and have enough space
Let us know how it goes!

 

[omegacactus]

Thanks guys

I will probably try just 2 females to start, this way if it doesn't work out I can put up a divider in the cage and get a male mate for each one!

 

[Blob Chicken]

I agree with what the others have said ,but I do have one question.

Why dont you want fertile eggs ??

 

[omegacactus]

I don't want to hatch any chicks, just want the eggs to feed to my kitties

Feeding them fertilized eggs seems kinda strange, even if the chick hasn't grown yet... and I'm not sure how many would be fertilized if a male were in with the female.
Since the quail will primarily be pets I only want 2-3 for now, and figured might as well have them be females so I get eggs from all of them!

 

[Blob Chicken]

I dunno ,fertile or not ,it makes no different for the first while. Actually ,infertile eggs will often develope for a few days before dying ,and if worked with enough you can create parthnogenic birds !!

Either way ,its your choice

Also you feed eggs to your cats ?? I hard boil quail eggs to feed to my cagebirds while they nest ,and I feed my magpie raw quail eggs. How abouts do you feed them ?? Raw ,hard boiled ,sunny side up

??

 

[omegacactus]

Hehe I'm sure they'd love them fried

My kitties are on a raw diet, so I give them raw chicken eggs every now and then. I haven't found a source for raw quail eggs around here to try, but I found canned ones (boiled with no salt added) and they go crazy for them - I call them "cat-sized" eggs lol. We'll see how they take to some fresh ones!