Surprise Baby Quail

[Nabiki]

Got it covered on the rescue side of things

I spent the last year as a volunteer at the auckland bird rescue before we moved up here. Haven't reached out to any of the local centers yet, but I picked up a lot of medical knowledge while I was there and have been through baby bird season.

Still have a means of getting ahold of the avian vets if needed, but I doubt this little one will need that. - it's just not very keen on food at the moment, but still young - bright, alert and responsive, so I'm not too concerned yet.

I was kind of thinking that the local rescue might have some chicks to give this one company, but I'm glad you have the knowledge to give this little one proper care. Since it's alone, it will help if you give it a lot of attention. A mirror or a small stuffed animal might help some too.

 

[007Sean]

The problem with raising a single chick isn't so much the lack of companionship of other chicks but other chicks explore their surroundings and in doing so peck, scratch, and try different things....this is how they learn and the other chicks 'catch on'....without the hen to teach them, you have to show/teach them and it can be time consuming and frustrating.
Also, if 20% is all you can find, it will work!...just won't see as fast a growth rate. A substitute protein source that will also work, is cat food kibble. It's usually around 30% protein. Crush it up and sprinkle in with the pulverized crumble feed.

 

[Lizzy733]

The problem with raising a single chick isn't so much the lack of companionship of other chicks but other chicks explore their surroundings and in doing so peck, scratch, and try different things....this is how they learn and the other chicks 'catch on'....without the hen to teach them, you have to show/teach them and it can be time consuming and frustrating.
Also, if 20% is all you can find, it will work!...just won't see as fast a growth rate. A substitute protein source that will also work, is cat food kibble. It's usually around 30% protein. Crush it up and sprinkle in with the pulverized crumble feed.

I've found some 40% kitten kibble and have added that to their fine-ground feed - and, yes 'their'! I found someone in Auckland that had week old white coturnix. One four hour round trip later and little Cali now has 3 new brooder mates. They're only a 'bit' bigger than our little one.

The new guys were a bit snoozy after the long car ride, so I made sure they all got a drink from a syringe to re-hydrate once we got back and popped them in. After a bit of time observing, one looks to have been a wonky hatch. Mighta been a sticky chick as there's a bit of dried albumen present(but not bad) and it isn't opening one eye. I did check and it's not been glued shut - they just aren't keen to open it despite there being no sign of injury etc... though the eyelid slit looks to be positioned a bit higher than the other side... So yeah, watch list for that one. Cali has been very happy to finally have some cagemates and has been mingling all afternoon!

I'm very curious to see how these guys interact once they're older as Cali seems to have a very different 'I'm lost' call than the new batch and is much more active. I know california and japanese quail are genetically dissimilar; does anyone know if they'd be able to produce viable or sterile offspring if they were to mate?

 

[Nabiki]

They might try to mate, but they're not going to produce viable offspring.

 

[007Sean]

They might try to mate, but they're not going to produce viable offspring.

Ditto!!! They will try to mate and might even produce an embryo but it will be (dis) and not make it to hatch.

 

[Lizzy733]

Ditto!!! They will try to mate and might even produce an embryo but it will be (dis) and not make it to hatch.

Cheers, will keep an eye on them when they hit puberty to make sure (if it's a)'he' doesnt fertilize any coturnix over other males. (Depending on how the genders turn out) Going to assume the coturnix are going to be ready to breed much sooner anyway.

There's plenty of california quail about, so I'm sure there will be more orphans in the future; we're not going anywhere. We found an abandoned egg our first week here and did pop it in the incubator for a week, but it was no good - might have overheated in the sun as that was a particularly hot week.

Perhaps we can soft release or free range little Cali and they can find a mate nearby. We're fortunate enough to be really light on the predators here. The occasional hawk, but not much else in the area.

 

[little-beep]

The problem with raising a single chick isn't so much the lack of companionship of other chicks but other chicks explore their surroundings and in doing so peck, scratch, and try different things....this is how they learn and the other chicks 'catch on'....without the hen to teach them, you have to show/teach them and it can be time consuming and frustrating.
Also, if 20% is all you can find, it will work!...just won't see as fast a growth rate. A substitute protein source that will also work, is cat food kibble. It's usually around 30% protein. Crush it up and sprinkle in with the pulverized crumble feed.

I've had a single button quail chick since hatch until now (4 weeks) .. It didn't need much training for anything aside from showing how to peck at food and find the water. Raised from a chick. It also seems to naturally know how to dust bath in my HAIR .....

There was another chick here for about 5 days when my chick was 3 wks old but they were separated

 

[Lizzy733]

We've had a few ups and downs, after losing one of the coturnix (drowned in a drowned-proof waterer :/) and then recently the california quail died of unknown causes... (Randomly died overnight with no real signs of illness. I thought maybe coccidia, since their feed isnt medicated so have dosed their water with a bit of baycox, but everyone is acting healthy as can be), then we had 3 little california tear through the house which we managed to catch. - the count is currently 2 coturnix and 3 california.

Just finished buying the last bits of timber and roofing for the quail shelter, which has already been framed up. We have an aviary that was being used for planting (I think 1200 x 2400) - just need to get the raised bed out if there, which will be this weekend's project, and put a curtain door on it to prevent escapees when entering\exiting. I think we'll be good to move everyone outside for next week.

I reckon it can likely house around 24 - and I've made the shelter accordingly to future-proof things as my son really wants a side-hustle outta selling quail eggs at the market (he's 7, so the husbandry falls on me at the end of the day :/). Very curious to find out what the whites end up. - they have a bit of splotchy colors, but look to be the same size and feathering in at the same speed, so assuming I have two of the same gender? One has a reddish band on the back of the neck if that means anything.

The new californias are big, med, small... But appear to be equally feathered in and they've been fine off the heat this week.

Hardly anyone in the region seems to really be selling quail or eggs. Will be at least a 2 hr drive one way if I ever need to source more. - I don't trust hatching eggs to survive the drive to mine as it's all rutted twisty gravel for at least 20 minutes.

I've kinda resigned myself to not ordering any more fancy breeds - will have to go straight for the day-olds.

 

[Lizzy733]

Aaand everybody is now outside in the aviary. Geeze that was a lot of work! It had a raised bed full of clay inside that had to go... Then found out my hutch was way too big for the tiny door so had to cut out a panel and re-nail it down with fence staples. The mesh was in good shape, but the staples were janky - definitely wasnt built with the idea of keeping tiny flying birds at bay, so spent hours tamping everything down and making sure it was secure. Put in a mesh over the door as an escape trap - will see how necessary that is eventually, I suppose.

They are slowly exploring now:

 

[Lizzy733]

First Coturnix egg! Now I have to wonder if they're both girls! Originally thought they might both be boys cause they've taken their sweet time!

The california are doing well too. So far, it's looking like one boy and two girls. Hopefully, they stay that way.

Sooo tiny.