So I posted a few weeks ago saying that after one of my button quails abandoned her chick I rescued it and have since been raising him myself until he is big enough to be reintroduced to the quail flock. He's now almost a month old and so far things are going fairly well, but I have had a few small concerns, and just wanted to see what you guys thought in general.
His feathers came through nicely, and he's starting to get feathers on his head as well. I feed him a high protein chick feed of some kind, and he gets plenty of fresh food and water as well as the shell for calcium and grit for digestion; I did also try giving him some millet seed and cucumber, but he didn't seem very interested. I've lowered the temperature slowly as he's grown up, but still keep it quite warm in there as it recommends in my book. I also added a small little house for him to go into and he spends some of his time sitting in there, as well as sleeping in there at night. He's slowly been getting better at flying, and can fly out of his box, though he doesn't really seem to want to unless something startles him.
I have been a little concerned recently about his behavior, since he does seem to have become a bit more anxious/agitated in the past ~4 days. Sometimes, he will suddenly start jumping around and flying from one side of his box to another; it seems to come on in short bursts as though this is something stressing him, but I cannot for the life of me work out what it is. I don't think it's something that he can hear or see, and I'm certain it's nothing I'm doing as he will still allow me to stroke/pet him which seems to calm him down. I'm not really sure what it is, or if it's even a major problem at all since he's fine most of the time and calms down very quickly afterwards. He has also become more timid about being handled; I used to be able to pick him up and handle him with very little resistance at all, and while he's is still quite happy to be held, he does tend to resist being picked up a bit more than before. Again, I don't really think this is a problem, I assume it's just natural quail behavior since all my other quails will fly away if I try to handle them, though I'm not really sure why he seems to have become more timid. And finally he likes to stretch his legs and wings every so often, it looks kind of goofy, but again I assume this is perfectly normal.
If you have any feedback on anything I've said, or if there's something I haven't mentioned or maybe it sounds like I'm doing something wrong, I'm really just looking for general feedback based on everything I've said. Thanks in advance, and here is a photo of him in case that's helpful as well.
His feathers came through nicely, and he's starting to get feathers on his head as well. I feed him a high protein chick feed of some kind, and he gets plenty of fresh food and water as well as the shell for calcium and grit for digestion; I did also try giving him some millet seed and cucumber, but he didn't seem very interested. I've lowered the temperature slowly as he's grown up, but still keep it quite warm in there as it recommends in my book. I also added a small little house for him to go into and he spends some of his time sitting in there, as well as sleeping in there at night. He's slowly been getting better at flying, and can fly out of his box, though he doesn't really seem to want to unless something startles him.
I have been a little concerned recently about his behavior, since he does seem to have become a bit more anxious/agitated in the past ~4 days. Sometimes, he will suddenly start jumping around and flying from one side of his box to another; it seems to come on in short bursts as though this is something stressing him, but I cannot for the life of me work out what it is. I don't think it's something that he can hear or see, and I'm certain it's nothing I'm doing as he will still allow me to stroke/pet him which seems to calm him down. I'm not really sure what it is, or if it's even a major problem at all since he's fine most of the time and calms down very quickly afterwards. He has also become more timid about being handled; I used to be able to pick him up and handle him with very little resistance at all, and while he's is still quite happy to be held, he does tend to resist being picked up a bit more than before. Again, I don't really think this is a problem, I assume it's just natural quail behavior since all my other quails will fly away if I try to handle them, though I'm not really sure why he seems to have become more timid. And finally he likes to stretch his legs and wings every so often, it looks kind of goofy, but again I assume this is perfectly normal.
If you have any feedback on anything I've said, or if there's something I haven't mentioned or maybe it sounds like I'm doing something wrong, I'm really just looking for general feedback based on everything I've said. Thanks in advance, and here is a photo of him in case that's helpful as well.
