Taming coturnix quail!

[quail1999]

Hi!
I have 10 super mega amazing coturnix quail. They are so cute! I bought mine as adults, so i never expected them to be overly tame. But they are so sweet!

2 quail are super sweet and will let me pick them up with no problem.

5 quail are pretty calm, and will hold still for a second then freak out!

1 quail is pretty evil but to tiny to do any harm.

2 are totally spazzy

What personalities!

Do any of you guys have stories with taming your pet quail! How tame are your coturnix!?

Happy holidays

 

[SeptemberQuail]

Taming! Taming adults is much easier than taming chicks in my opinion.
When I got my first trio of quail, they weren't skittish, but more fearful of me. They would huddle together near the opposite side of their cage where I wouldn't be able to reach them.

It wasn't until the next day, well, I spent pretty much a whole day with them. I took them out of their cage (took a while) and put them in the box in which they traveled home in (a large cardboard box) so I could carry them around my yard.
I on the occasion, picked them up by sliding my hand under their belly, and then patting their back. They would freak out a bit but I put them down.

Then I sat down with them and let them play in the grass in my yard with a type of cage put ontop of them to prevent them from running off.
Sometimes I would remove the cage/lid thing and let them come closer to me. I discovered that they loved clovers as when I picked one, one of my female quail would steal it from my hand. It was cute!

I continued to handle and play with them over the week and nowadays the females won't run when I come close, though the male will freak out a bit. Sadly my first tamed female died recently, but my other female is also very tame. She would run off once my shadow looms over their cage, but once she sees my hand, she stops and lets me pick her up. She doesn't care how I hold her, though she prefers to stand on my hand like my other quail do, plus her claws don't even hurt! They look painful, but you can't feel anything, it just tickles.

Now the chicks, I tried the same method but they still are scared of me, even though I've hand-fed them yummy treats like boiled egg... Though they're scared of me, they don't mind rushing over towards me if I come along with a treat.

 

[quail1999]

Those are great ideas. I'm sorry about your quail Pepper

Just a quick question... do you keep your quail on wire, and how many square feet do you have per bird?

Thanks!

 

[FenDruadin]

We have a quail who used to be terrified of other quail--he thought he was human. He was an accidental hatch--my very young son had put four or five eggs in the incubator and promptly forgot about them. One day the incubator was cheeping & lo and behold... one of those suckers had made it out (the rest appeared to be infertile or early quitters--hard to say since I hadn't been monitoring them at all). So we had this ONE single lonely little quail baby... and we raised him in the house... and fed & handled him daily...

The first time we introduced him to another quail he FREAKED OUT. I wrote about that little experience here.

Anyway, we used to keep quail on wire, and even though I don't think it's ideal, it can work just fine if they have enrichment opportunities, like sand boxes and branches. They do tend to be tamer the more natural their environment. And they do each have their own personalities, don't they?