not breeding.... "help!!"

[channyx904]

I have a 1 male to 4 female ratio button quails... they aren't breeding. I had them around 2 months now.. no egg.. what could seem to be the problem. They are warm plenty of food and water... only thing i haven't had for them is a hiding spot ut they all seem to get along fine.. cuddle up to sleep together..... i don't know why they aren't laying... help!

 

[TwoCrows]

Button quail need to kept in pairs ONLY. Grandma Bird is the expert on Buttons, but this much I do know.

And I would imagine that you do need hidey places so they feel comfortable laying in them. When birds are not comfortable laying, for what ever reason, they won't. Stress of too many males could also prevent them from laying.

Also, make sure they are on a high protein gamebird food diet to provide enough protein to produce eggs.

 

[Weirdness555]

I am confused, are button quail coturnix chinesis, called Chinese painted quail in the UK? or are they buttonquail, (all one word)? Or are they something else? As far as I know all of the information about CPQ in the UK says they should be kept in 1:3 ratios similar to coturnix? We kept CPQ like this for years and they laid A LOT of eggs, and we didn't give them anything special to eat except spilt budgie seed. I'm wondering if the species referred to here is totally different to the one I'm thinking of, since they're supposed to be kept in pairs, because I don't think that would have worked with our CPQ.

 

[TwoCrows]

Button quail are not Coturnix quail. Button quail come from a small group of birds that inhabit parts of Africa, Australia and parts of Asia. Coturnix quail come from Japan and eastern Asia. Two totally different species of birds. Chinese Painted quail are Button quail.

 

[Weirdness555]

But chinese painted quail are Coturnix Chinensis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Quail so if the button quail referred to on here are NOT in the coturnix family, then they must be buttonquail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttonquail

In that case I will stop helping people with button quail, I've kept chinese painted but I've never heard of buttonquail.

 

[TwoCrows]

Ok...so I may have left out an important word here. LOL

Chinese Coturnix, aka Button Quail are not Japanese Quail, aka the commonly called Coturnix Quail. Generally when folks say they have Coturnix quail, unless specified, usually they are talking about the Japanese variety.

However even though these two types of birds may fall into the same catagory of "coturnix" quail, button quail and the Japanese quail are housed differently.

 

[GrandmaBird]

The "Button Quail" here in the USA are Chinese Blue Breasted Quail (or another color from the same group). They do best in pairs as this is how they live in the wilds but they haven't been in the wilds in many years. It is best if you are keeping them as pets to just keep one pair. If you are raising them for some other reason, breeding to sell or sell eggs, then some people have had luck keeping them in groups. I am a believer in keeping in just pairs either way. You can keep track of egg and chick quality and production easier if kept in separate cages and in pairs. But it is a free world after all so do as you feel fit.

and to the first question 2 months is a bit early for good egg production give them a few more weeks but be sure they have oyster shell and high protein food.

 

[Weirdness555]

Ok, thanks a lot for clearing that up! I guess it's just a difference of information across the pond, combined with the naming issues, CONFUSION!! People should just give one bird one name and stick to it! haha, though we've seen how well that works with Coturnix quail (AKA Japanese, Italian, etc etc).

We were always told that if you kept just a pair then the male would kill the female, but the more I read the more I think that might be a mis-information coming from people confusing Coturnix with CPQ, because obviously that's true for buttons. It's a shame, because if we'd known that when we kept them then we'd have kept our male chicks when we hatched them.

Thanks guys

 

[channyx904]

Thank you grandma bird... it kind of seem to be sidetracked a little bit.. but I will wait. thank you guys soo much!!