Quail Training :)

[Fishkeeper]

The majority of animals can be trained.

You can use any signal, but it has to be consistent and something that you can do very fast, so a clicker is good. You could also choose a word and say it in the same tone every time.

To get them to go to a certain area, throw food in that area while clicking your clicker or saying the signal. Eventually they'll associate the click with food and will go to that area.
To get them to come, use a signal, but a DIFFERENT signal than above, and offer them food. They'll learn that the other signal means going to you gets food.
Both work best if you occasionally feed them when they do it even after they're done training.

 

[someusername]

Yeah, I agree.
I just click my tongue though.

 

[MageofMist]

I don't use clickers or a food based award when training my Japanese Quail Scrappy, I use a mix of vocal and tactile training rather than clicker as I started as a "I wonder if..." sorta thing. XP I started with food as a reward, but he developed "food brain" where all his attention became focused on food and where I could be hiding it, instead of focusing on training.

So instead, I switched to petting him as a reward (and to ease his attention back to me) which had better results on his attention on me improving greatly, though he still gets distracted by stuff going on around him.

Also with him being an old, near 4 year old quail, you'd think he'd be pretty chill energy wise... He is still a male Quail, they never seem to lose energy! So sometimes if I plan on training him around morning time, when his energy is literally bursting, I need to tire him out through play. Not complaining as it is fun and adorable!

And thus, the end result is this. So far he only knows paw (I guess foot? Talon? XD) and step up.