Need some help with button quail

[cowgirl11]

Hi everyone,
I raise pigeons and chickens and now i'd like to get some button quail! I've had bobwhites before but never button quail. My friend will be giving me some fertile eggs and I plan to incubate them. Any suggestions? Also, a few questions.. Can I get just one or two, or do I need more? I've heard they can become tame and live indoors. Is this true?
Thanks!

 

[shelleyd2008]

Check out the stickies at the top of this (Quail) forum. There are at least 2 button quail stickies.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=5137331#p5137331
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=424352

 

[cowgirl11]

Thank you
Does anyone know how much different gamebird crumble is from pigeon food and is there any way to modify pigeon food for quail or are they entirely different?

 

[shelleyd2008]

If you mean pigeon pellets, the main difference is the protein levels. The pigeon pellets that I know of (nutra-green and nutra-gold) come in 16% and either 18 or 20% protein. I think the gold is the higher but I'm not sure about that. If the higher one is 20%, that's fine for buttons. You really shouldn't keep buttons on gamebird feed their whole lives cause that's a little too much protein. A good feed for them is Purina Flock raiser, it's a 20% protein feed. Of course you'd want to offer finch seed (at a rate of 60/40--60 being crumbles and 40 being seed) and free-choice oyster shells.

 

[shelleyd2008]

Oh, I just found out that the calcium needed is calcium carbonate. I used to offer my buttons cuttlebones, like you'd get for pet birds such as budgies, but I was told this wasn't the right 'type'. I was googling and found out that cuttlebone is also calcium carbonate, so you could use that if you wanted to. That's what I'll be getting for mine again, it's much softer and doesn't need to be ground up for them.

 

[cowgirl11]

Thank you for all the help! I'll get them some cuttlebone